Healing my Exercise Addiction and Adrenal Exhaustion

My experience of exercising over the last 35 to 40 years, would be to say that when taken to great lengths it can become an addiction – like any other drug. With this addiction I would use exercise to numb and avoid the feelings of emptiness I had, to control emotions that would arise, and use it as a way of expunging any pent-up feelings.

I used exercise to fill the void. It provided a high that encouraged me to go back to the gym to get my next fix.

When I was working, before I had my children, I felt I had exercise in balance. This was in the eighties when aerobics had just started and the classes were more organic and less frenetic than they are now. I would go to two, maybe three classes per week, and walk.

But after having children and spending more time in my own company without the distraction of work, a feeling of emptiness started to rise up, as well as a feeling that I wasn’t doing enough by just being at home, even though I adored my two children and loved caring for them. My daily routine was built around the exercise class times and if I couldn’t get there then it had to be a power walk. If I wasn’t able to exercise, either because of time constraints or because I was exhausted, I would become frustrated, restless, and at times angry.

The emptiness that I felt was such a deep pain inside. I didn’t know what it was and I just wanted to get rid of it. It was a bottomless pit that nothing could fill – not food, my husband, children, friends, movies, travel or any other distraction that I tried. And as it turned out not even exercise; however, it kept the uncomfortable feelings I was having at bay, just like a ‘drug’.

If we were doing things on weekends or visiting friends and family, again, the exercise would come first. We couldn’t go anywhere until I’d been to a gym/fitness class, or we’d have to leave early so I could get to one upon our return home. And if the gym was closed for any reason I was not happy!

I thought I was doing well by not using alcohol and I thought I was okay because what I was doing was contributing to my health and fitness so that I could better cope with life.However, it had an insidious effect on me, and my relationships: nothing was being dealt with, instead only being further buried.

I didn’t know how to deal with the difficulties I had in my relationships, or with my lack of self-worth. I would withdraw, become frustrated, tense or angry and I didn’t feel that it was okay to be feeling any of this. I felt frustrated that my relationship with my husband wasn’t working so I’d go back to using exercise to make myself feel better and to prevent me from getting to the point of feeling the absolute devastation of the lack of communication and intimacy within my marriage.

Thirty years later, after my marriage breakdown I was diagnosed with third stage adrenal exhaustion. I thought I had the side benefit of being extremely fit but due to my exercise addiction I was pushing my body so hard that I was experiencing respiratory infections every six weeks and then was eventually diagnosed with third stage adrenal exhaustion and depression.

I realised that I was using exercise as a drug to run away from myself.

For three years I stopped all exercise apart from gentle short walks which were incredibly important, and Connective Tissue Exercises, which are very gentle and powerful and I was able to do those lying down. I couldn’t do anything without going into the drive and push of the way I used to exercise. At the beginning, this was all I was able to do for some time. I’m now rebuilding and enjoying exercising, using an exercise program provided for me by an Esoteric Practitioner. This program has been tailored for me and for where I’m at, including weights, using them in a gentle and very supportive way. It allows me to stay connected with myself and it feels great!

The way back to exercise has been a lengthy and considered one. To heal the adrenal exhaustion (which is still lingering) has required me to completely surrender whenever I feel tired and to avoid any form of artificial stimulation through sugar, caffeine or stress. I was provided with programs very specific to my energy levels and this has required me to be very connected to my body and the way it feels so as not to overexert myself and increase the exhaustion. The moment I feel any fatigue is an indication for me to stop. Something I was able to connect to throughout this process was that if I rested as soon as I felt the feeling of tiredness come on, the feeling of depression and negative thoughts would dissipate.

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677 Comments

Bernard Cincotta says:November 7, 2015 at 8:35 am

Thank you anonymous, this is an important lesson, we can think that we are ok by being fit and healthy but if we are mis-using exercise to suppress an underlying lack of self worth, we are exercising that energy into the body which is horrible for the body and it must be cleared. So I get what you mean when you say it is insidious because it was under the guise of being healthy.
You can change what it means to exercise, from it being punishment to the body to being a self-loving connection with your body when this energy is exercised into your body it feels great.

Imagine if we re-considered what it means to exercise, sleep, eat and relate from a quality of supporting our bodies and not as a means of avoiding or running away from our issues of low self worth or lovelessness. It would be indeed be a huge revolution which would put an end to fad diet and exercise regimes.

EVERYTIME I read the comments on this blog, it can be related to soooo many areas of our lives. It is the intention behind whatever we do that determines the end result. Regardless of how ‘good’ we believe something is for us, it’s always healing to look at our motive.

Beautifully said Shevon, and this is a huge part of how we run our day. And yet intentions are not a part we consider, what if our intention was to just be ourselves no matter what we are faced with and to not take on other issues, dramas etc. Would this not then allow us to enjoy our day while doing what it needed.

Lovely Amina! “what if our intention was to just be ourselves no matter what we are faced with and to not take on other issues, dramas etc.”. Super Power-full! I felt every word! Thank you.

Amita says:December 18, 2015 at 7:17 am

Amina, yes what if our intentions where just to be ourselves how powerful would that be! No issues, no dramas….

carolien says:November 13, 2015 at 3:24 pm

absolutely Shevon and our intention is often created by how we judge ourselves and what we see around us. Instead of truly supporting our body for example it is about being slim, being strong, bulking up or trying to make up for choices we know have not been supporting. True support comes from deeply connecting to our bodies and feeling who we truly are first and then from that feeling how to support being in this loveliness.

Yes Carolien I agree that our false intention are not loving or supportive at all and that they are like a motor for loosing ourselves more and more so that we are only seeing ourselves critically. I too find it very supportive to connect back to my body and feel from there what would be the next loving thing to do.

Karin Barea says:December 13, 2015 at 7:45 am

‘feeling who we truly are first and then from that feeling how to support being in this loveliness.’ brilliantly put Carolien. If I applied this to all I do I would bring the amazing quality of who I am to everyone around me.

That I’ve been quite an expert at burying awareness, hurts, and hiding my irresponsibility from myself means I am also an expert in what exactly will support me to be aware, responsible and heal.

Monika Korb says:December 17, 2015 at 5:58 pm

This is so true Shevon, it is the intention behind the doing, that makes the end result.

So true Shevon. I used yoga and meditation at times to escape from the life I was living that was dogged by the feeling of emptiness. I thought I was doing good! I also volunteered for some groups – again it was me seeking to fill my empty life with meaning.

It is so common Anne, it has been such a gift to feel the difference of exercising for connection and exercising as a way of forgetting my troubles or working off my day. I deal with everything so much better with exercising in connection to myself because I honour how I am feeling. I have noticed that I can feel more energised after exercising when I am tired sometimes, not over stimulated but simply steady and ready to complete or even start my day.

Fiona Lotherington says:November 10, 2015 at 5:25 am

There is no push or drive to do more if you exercise for your body rather than using it as a feel good drug. I see people in the gym exercising like you used to. They strain and seem to have no enjoyment in their face, just the unyielding need to suppress the feeling that they are not enough.

Fiona, I used to go swimming in a gym club, and did go in the gym once, but I simply couldn’t bear the blank, switched off faces of those in there. No fun, no joy, no connection , and after that visit – no me.

True Catherine. The gym is not a joyful place to be. Everyone does look very serious and hardly anyone seems to be having any fun. Maybe that’s why so many people end up wasting their membership and don’t go. I used to be one of those, but now I do go at least twice a week and have kept that up for the last year. It’s the most consistent I’ve been, because I now don’t push myself, and only do what feels right on the day. The gym may not be a joyful place, but I can be joyful at the gym.

Anne Hishon says:November 16, 2015 at 2:08 am

I can relate to this , Fiona. I used to exercise fanatically for 20 years- exercise always came first and had a strong influence on how I felt about myself. I did not want to feel my emptiness or low self worth. Exercise was my drug. It is so freeing now to be able to go for a gentle walk, do an ego yoga class or lift some weights and know that this is enough for my body.

It’s a different world isn’t it Anne… I can relate to what you have said here, and I have realised how like any addiction- it is always at the expense of you, and also everybody else. We cannot underestimate the effects of our low self worth and addictions on others. And how amazingly different life can be when we choose to love ourselves. This freedom you speak of also includes an expansion in our relationships.

Rik Connors says:November 26, 2015 at 8:59 pm

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Absolutely Fiona “There is no push or drive to do more if you exercise for your body rather than using it as a feel good drug”. So true – some days your body screams for a 10min dedicated walk for yourself. If the quality is there with the commitment to the body’s natural flow of harmony it responds with bells and whistles of the best kind. Walking for your amazingness is one of the most rewarding experiences / exercise I have done. FYI – the most rewarding experience ever is to write about it.

Often the gym is used as a way to overcome the many other bad feelings in life, and create some feelings of doing well, and accomplishing something. Going to the gym can be a fantastic way to care for yourself, but imagine how great it would be if you were also caring for yourself in all the other parts of your life.

That would be amazing, but the way the gym gets used a lot is for self abuse and to numb the feelings of hurt, to not feel the falsity of their own life. Sometimes I talk to gym members and ask them how they like their work out, most of the time I get feedback that it must be hard and pushing to sweat a lot. Only then they can feel the body – to be able to sleep at night, otherwise the mind would not allow to sleep. This is heavy and feels so wrong. All I can do here, is to be a reflection of another way.

katie walls says:November 10, 2015 at 6:11 am

Yes it would bring in a loving responsibility so that the body is not left less in any way.

Fantastic Jennifer. This comment can truly apply to our entire quality of life. Living from quality and holding that in all that we do brings much awareness and learning to all facets of life today. It really is a revolution and a much needed revelation of life for all.

Indeed an important lesson that we can be in the illusion that exercise is always healthy. The quality of the intention behind our exercise determines the quality the exercise will bring to the body. I think it is very common for people to exercise from the intention of improving themselves, trying to compensate their lack of self worth instead of supporting themselves lovingly and giving the body the exercise it needs.

Well when you say it like that Kylie, the choice is pretty obvious. Being aware that we have a choice and then making it is key.

Kate Maroney says:November 23, 2015 at 11:49 am

This is beautiful Kylie. I have noticed this very thing. I can go for a walk in lack of self worth and feel the same emptiness when I return as I had when I left. Conversely, going for a walk with the intention of feeling you within your body as you walk is a completely different experience and leaves you feeling rejuvenated at the end of it.

This doesn’t only apply to walking, but this same intention can be brought to all daily tasks and movements.

Annelies van Haastrecht says:November 9, 2015 at 3:55 pm

I agree Katinka, it is all about intention, I have always exercised from a lack of self worth, trying to improve my figure and never to support myself or to connect to my body.

My drive for exercising, running ever day, sit-ups, pushups etc all the time was to be a “better person”. Now I know who I am and if for any reason I am not being loving with myself, that there is a light to be shined on what I have allowed that is driving the self-abuse. There is no need to be “better” for anyone, for we are already the all.

Yes, Katinka, thank you for this observation. I often wondered why young women go to the gym to exercise with weights or doing so many push ups that next day they can’t move around? Having their body in pain and bruises- what is the purpose? Fitness? I doubt it. It all comes with cost as we see from Anonymous’ blog.
It is precious that we have real people sharing their stories so we can learn. As well as bring more understanding of what is going on in our lives and see that there is a different way of living.

I can absolutely feel that the exercise I do now supports me and when done correctly (not pushing, overdoing it or addicted) can be so beneficial to not only my body in strengthening it but also in supporting how I am and interact with life in my day. So it is good to feel and see how not to do exercise but also how to ?

Yes exercising in a way that supports me has a positive impact on the rest of my day and all my relationships.

kerstin Salzer says:November 10, 2015 at 12:45 pm

I agree, Katinka, exercise and sports is often thought to be healthy. I myself have done a lot of exercising, and I thought I can keep my body fit through this, heal any depressive moments and in truth heal my whole life or improve my whole life through this. People shared to me that they admire me for being so disciplined in this and as such they would see in me a commitment to life. Interesting how we think that being hard to oneself would be the remedy. I got ill at one stage and no exercise could help to improve my symptoms. Only when I learned how much the quality of movement matters in how we feel through attending courses with Universal Medicine I was able to change my way of moving and thinking. This is an ongoing study and deepening process.

The quality of movement is an important note here, Kerstin, when it comes to exercise but equally so to all our daily movements. Even when we are still something is moving in our body – be it the lungs or our heart, our blood. We have a greater influence on this than we might think. By choosing a loving and tender way to breathe consciously we improve all our body functions, so that a harmounious flow is possible.

Our quality of moving, being, exercising, everything does indeed count Kerstin, I too am choosing to refine and build on this in my life. This feels so much more regarding, respectful, honouring and yummy in my body.

The so called health drink explosion is incredibly misleading at best and corrupt at worst. Drinks loaded with sugar peddled as health food drinks. Marketing does not account for truth in much of these drinks.

Exploitation of people’s lack of awareness, sugar is highly addictive and poisonous to our bodies. I feel those selling so called ‘health’ drinks, use greed and corruption instead of integrity and love to run their company.

Yes Heather not to forget many protein bars sold in gyms masking bucket loads of sugar.

Monika Korb says:December 18, 2015 at 4:12 pm

The sport industry knows exactly how to make people addicted to their drinks, bars and powders. Sugar is the drug they use in many hidden forms.

Kylie Connors says:November 10, 2015 at 9:17 pm

Absolutely Katinka. There is a great deal of illusion in most things we call ‘healthy’. For example- ‘health’ food, ‘health’ drinks, ‘healthy’ lifestyle, ‘health’ modalities etc. We often do not discern for ourselves what is true for us as soon as something is labelled ‘healthy’ – we assume it will do us good. ‘Healthy’ has become a picture we aspire to, rather than an honouring of our vitality from within. And we harm ourselves deeply by living a ‘healthy’ lifestyle if it is not in accordance with our true and natural rhythms, or dealing with our issues. ‘Healthy’ allows us to put out a picture that we are well, whilst not ever really dealing with our issues or evolving.

Kylie I love this sentence – ‘Healthy’ allows us to put out a picture that we are well, whilst not ever really dealing with our issues or evolving. I agree. It creates an illusion that we have our life all sorted … an attempt to fool ourselves us much as others. Also love ”Healthy’ has become a picture we aspire to, rather than an honouring of our vitality from within.”

Heather it is crazy how people associate no pain no gain with exercise, when exercise should really be a joyful experience with no pain, but a way to keep the body healthy.

Monica Gillooly says:November 12, 2015 at 7:28 am

Ouch Katinka, I can feel that it’s like an assault on the body when we exercise to improve. We’ve already decided that there is something to fix and we’re not engaging with our bodies; but when we exercise in connection to us, we feel how our bodies need to move and there is such a space and a joy in moving – one for me to always remember, connect first and feel and then move.

So true Monica, when we our out to prove ourselves, we have already lost it. This has been my experience. I started to get personal training sessions earlier in the year. I felt I was doing it for all the right reasons, but then it slowly moved into wanting to improve, sculpt my body, look better, recognition and it kept on going. It stopped being about feeling an inner strength, building up my core muscles. It has been a great lesson in learning to be more with myself when I actually exercised. I did stop with the personal training and also the gym, just relearning to build up a deeper connection with myself at home before venturing back to the gym.

Hi Raegan,
You bring up a great point about getting a personal trainer. I have done this in the past and without a doubt I did this purely for the external benefits and not for connection.
i’m now looking at exercise again now in a way where I am putting the connection first. To do this i feel is a slow and steady building that is forever developing. It isn’t just a ‘burst’ of a training period but a lifelong deepening connection to keep on looking at.

Leigh Matson says:January 8, 2016 at 5:28 pm

That can be applied to every area of life Monica. The moment we do something from the intention of improving then we’ve lost it. But what I am finding is that even if I do go into something with an expectation or a wanted outcome or a neediness, coming back to the body and how it feels to be in the situation (even if it’s blown up in our faces/reacting to the expectations not being met) it far healthier and a truer picture of ‘health’ than being able to fit into tight lycra running pants.

Exercising with headphones was very normal for me, 5-10km a day, I even ran a marathon with music. In hindsight I was at the time well aware that I wanted to escape the pain I was in from pushing my body well beyone what it wanted to do. Now I would prefer to listen to my body.

Katinka so true people get caught in the illusion that exercise is always healthy. What you share is true if the intention is to improve themselves, then this is compensating their lack of self worth. The exercise will not be as supported to their body, as the intention is laced. It is true that the quality of the intention of exercise will support the exercise that is brought to the body. It is with true intention of exercise, that will support the body, by giving the exercise the body needs.

Yes, with exercise as with many other activities we can either deepen our connection and relationship with our body and thus our self or simply (mis-)use the body to generate a state of being that takes us away from ourselves for the purpose of not feeling the emptiness of not being who we are.

I agree Katinka, and it is because the lack of body awareness that is easy to override the body and abuse it as long as we are getting the ‘fix’ But if there is a connection to our bodies we get to feel more how delicate and tender we all are.

​I agree Katinka “I think it is very common for people to exercise from the intention of improving themselves, trying to compensate their lack of self worth instead of supporting themselves lovingly and giving the body the exercise it needs”. This raises the point of what the intention is of walking, stretching, connective tissue exercises, core exercises, light weights or some heavy weights etc etc. They all have a specific task but if the intention for all of the them is not raising or bringing the body back to harmony, then what are you truly offering the body and your well-being? How many fitness regimes truly offer possible harmony in the body?

We often think of exercise as one extreme or the other – either to be hard on ourselves (so we can hardly move the next day), or none at all (where walking up the stairs becomes hard work). Time for getting honest and more real and finding a way to move and exercise that really supports the body.

“…move and exercise that really supports the body.”
That is where it comes back to in all simplicity – being with the body, supporting and caring for it vs. mis-using it for any other purpose that is not in harmony with where the body is at and what it needs at the moment, hence imposing upon the body something it is not.

Sarah Flenley says:November 8, 2015 at 5:58 am

Well said Bernard – so much goes on that we think is ‘healthy’ but we’ve been sold so many lies by this industry that we’ve swallowed hook line and sinker. In this case it’s not that exercise is ‘wrong’ but it is the quality of energy that we do it in – are we doing it to numb/distract ourselves? And I would say that for many we are – Anonymous has so clearly pointed out how that is possible.

I agree Bernard and Sarah, what we define as being ‘healthy’ needs to be re-examined. It is good to look after your body but to push it to extremes, something it is not designed to, is to healthy even though going to the gym is deemed to be a ‘healthy’ activity. As you say Sarah it the quality we do things in which is crucially important, we can then become more and more in tune with our bodies and exercise accordingly which then, in my experience, prepares and boosts the body rather than draining it.

To echo what you say James, it is the quality of energy we are in when we do anything that is key, I have also found my intention in why I am exercising to be important, If I make it about something outside myself that I want to achieve or get, instead of making it about my connection and honouring my body, then I can set myself up for problems further down the track.

I found it interesting reflecting on your words ‘sold so many lies by this industry’. I see the instructors and can see they have also been sold this lie too. There is a hint of arrogance in the ones who think they have the answers and just need to convert those of us who haven’t seen the light yet. On the other hand there is a disillusionment in the ones who perhaps subconsciously or consciously know this isn’t it but see no alternative. So who is this industry and where does the fitness message come from? The instructors and fitness fanatics feel like they are being used to perpetuate the lie as role models of yet another untrue way to be in life.

You have made some excellent points here Fiona. It is such a common belief that all exercise is good for us. The whole fitness industry is run without any true care or understanding of the harmful effects of exercise. I recently heard a story of 2 men who met to go cycling one day before work. Both guys looked fit and appeared to be full of energy. Neither talked about their experience with each other and after their ride they were both left thinking each other was fit and healthy. What wasn’t revealed, was that one of the guy struggled to get up early and even go for the ride in the first place and was exhausted afterwards. The other guy was also exhausted afterwards and needed 3 coffees before he could start his day at work. It’s amazing what a bit of honesty reveals. However in this situation neither were aware of what each other went through for their so called ‘healthy morning exercise’.

Great sharing Vicky, and this really demonstrates how we are not even honest with ourselves let alone each other in the world, always trying to look as though we can handle everything. It is simple to see the truth but we do have to be willing to seeing it and then making changes that truly support us thereafter.

Lieke van Haastrecht says:November 13, 2015 at 3:19 pm

Wow yes that is a power full sharing Vicky and I think this is going on a lot in our current society. Keeping up appearances to each other will push the bar higher and higher even though both are actually not truly able to sustain that physical fitness. It makes me wonder, what would happen when we drop our appearances and allow ourselves to show how we truly feel? This would bring so much more connection between people and an opportunity to look at what is truly going on and from there make a change to heal the exhaustion instead of ignoring and hiding it.

carolien says:November 13, 2015 at 3:28 pm

This is a great sharing Vicky and shows how we compare ourselves to illusions. What each man thought of the other was not true and yet held as a measure for what they needed to live up to.

Simone Lewis says:November 24, 2015 at 5:42 am

It is such a commonly held belief that “all exercise is good for us without understanding the harmful effects”. I have become aware of the importance of exercising in deep connection with my body – I was surprised how little I actually need, but have never been stronger or felt more fit, healthy and vital. I love how you have shared the story about honesty here Vicky. Wouldn’t it be great if people shared honestly how they felt about exercising.

Donna Gianniotis says:November 24, 2015 at 6:20 am

Vicky this highlights the competitiveness that is often associated with exercise and sport. It is difficult for people to be honest when competitiveness takes precedent over everything. There is the idea to win, beat another or simply keep up in order to fit in or feel better about ourselves. The whole sporting industry is based on this. If one wins and another loses, there is always going to be at least one person being left as less. This is not OK and not true brotherhood and exposes the evil of competitiveness and of sport.

Anne Hart says:January 9, 2016 at 8:05 pm

Yes, it is like they had an ideal or a picture of what fitness looked like and did not really feel into if it was what their body needed … how common is this type of scenario?

Merrilee Pettinato says:November 18, 2015 at 6:57 am

So true Fiona, just another industry under the illusion that it is helping but the more we are presented with the quick fix the more our levels of obesity, illness and disease go through the roof. We are definitely being sold an illusionary life that is not delivering the promised results, it’s no surprise we are becoming more depressed and exhausted, people are giving up as nothing is presenting and delivering a true life style. Thanks to Universal Medicine we have been offered a choice to live From a different foundation.

A great point Fiona. I always found it interesting when I used to attend gym classes, just on a basic physical level I had concerns for how these classes were run as often it was in complete disregard of the body. At the time I was heavily into body building and had multiple personal trainers, each teaching me about form and the appropriate way to lift weights to support and strengthen the body, and so as to avoid or not induce injury. Then I would go to an exercise class and there was no attention to detail, just lift, pump and burn – as fast as you can, as many times as you can and with very little attention to form or proper safety. It’s no surprise people experience physical pain from the gym and from strange postures when they work out like this.

I love how you express this “exercising energy into the body”, I have never heard this phrase before and it makes so much sense and makes me realise the power we have in our own hands. We can literally reinforce the ideals and beliefs we carry or simply love ourselves.

The way we look at exercise needs to change from it being something to make us look and feel better, to it being something that enriches all of who we are and assists us to be more of who we are in life.

I found it a huge step to go from exercising madly to exercising in a loving way for my body and I still feel that I am clearing that energy. There are so many beliefs in our society that exercising hard is the way to be healthy and fit. I have learnt that healthy and fit do not go together but that being healthy and being loving do!

Yes Anne, and I think there is an overall ideal in society that to come somewhere, to get something you like etc. we have to struggle and go through hardship. Yet nobody seems to question if this is true. I for sure did not and adhered blindly to this way of doing things, including exercise. Until I came across Universal Medicine and became inspired to love myself more, now I am experiencing that there is another way than that harsh way, actually a loving way of living honouring my body which is way more efficient than the struggle. Above all for sure way more joyful in the process. Experiencing this showed me so much that the harsh way is a big illusion that is only real because many people believe in it and act like this.

Its very important what you shared Bernard, the energy we move and or exercise our bodies in get magnified with the movement, so if we exercise in a feeling of trying to improve or better our selves the feeling of not being good enough gets magnified throughout our body.

Excellent point Bernard and it applies to everything. For example I used to diet in a way that was almost like a punishment as if I didn’t deserve to or wasn’t allowed to eat certain food and healthy was to be a certain weight. Healthy ALWAYS comes from love and which energy we are using or being used by. These days I eat to support my body and lovingly choose not to eat things that harm my body or make me feel bad because why would I do that? It is exactly the same with exercise – I have now started to exercise and do weights because it feels so lovely and supportive for my body and I do them in connection with my body. As a result of all of this at 58 I have more vitality and joy in my life, and feel younger and sexier than I ever did before at any age!!!

Nicola – I used to exercise and diet in a way that was so controlled but I found that when I did this, I would have outbursts of not exercising or binge eating just to release this enormous pressure of control I was feeling. There was no steadiness and balance – and I am now working on how I bring this consistency into my life and have no ups or downs but a eat and exercise in a way that honours the flow of my body.

Absolutely Bernard. It also show us how we can only get away with pushing ourselves for so long, before our body catches up with us. Blogs like these educate us on the importance of looking after our bodies.

So true Bernard exercising in such a way where there is a drive and push underlying all that you do can only lead to exhaustion, no wonder anonymous came to such a point where she was adrenally exhausted. As you shared Bernard if the energy you are exercising in is not self-loving it makes sense that it would be felt by the body as unsupportive and although it looks like you are being healthy and fit, underneath what you are actually doing is harming yourself. A really important lesson about the intent we have behind why we choose to do something.

I never really over exercised but I do remember what it felt like when I went horse riding. I used to have to push myself to do it and I would have to suppress feelings of anxiousness in order to do it, so I can definitely relate to it being a punishment to the body, especially when I used to fall off, or when I had to push my pony hard to catch up with everyone else! Learning how to exercise in a way that truly supports me has been a revelation (up until then I always saw exercise as a “grit your teeth and get on with it” kind of thing) as now to me it feels joyful to connect and move my body to my own needs and not have to try to go at anyone else’s pace.

Exactly Bernard. Being fit and healthy doesn’t necessary mean being self-caring and loving – however by being self-caring and loving first, we allow space for the ‘being fit and healthy’ to naturally follow.

A great description Bernard, ‘You can change what it means to exercise, from it being punishment to the body to being a self-loving connection with your body when this energy is exercised into your body it feels great.’ I used to push my body so hard and did not enjoy exercise, i just did it because I thought it was good for me, I now love to walk and swim when I can, this feels so gentle and is actually really enjoyable.

Of late I have been feeling that society is misusing the word ‘healthy’. As demonstrated here, anon was not healthy at all, with recurrent infections and finally the fatigue. Children in schools are taught about ‘healthy’ eating, ‘health’ bars. ‘healthy’ snacks etc… but most of these foods are laden with sugar and other additives. I feel we need to question what we deem to be healthy… is it truly healthy after all? Is not health a whole picture, not just one aspect?

I agree Bernard, exercising in the right energy not only supports your homeostasis, you can also clear all the times you have given your power away to the exercise or anything. As Anonymous presented how she had to reimprint the energy into the forced behaviors she ‘punished’ her body with. Great revelation! Changes the way to do exercise.. and anything you do.

Imagine if they taught this first and foremost in every gym and exercising training session. It would refine from the ground up entirely what exercise means and how much responsibility we have for the quality in which we do it in.

Hello Bernard and yes I believed for a long time that being fit was the answer. Even though my ‘fit’ looked very different from what others thought was fit. I would train everyday with a regular rest day and one reason I did this was the way people looked at you when you told them how much you did. I would drive myself to train because then you had an image to uphold. This was just one part of why I trained so much and as you say I was “mis-using exercise” to cover my problems up and literally trying to run away from them. Deep down I knew I couldn’t keep it up forever but using exercise this way was a short term fix that I wasn’t willing to let go of regardless. Exercise is a completely different thing now because of my relationship with Universal Medicine, I still train but never punish myself.

This is a great summary here Bernard and also reflects my own experience of the way I have exercised in the past and am learning to exercise now. I have learnt it’s not the exercise itself that is either good or bad, nor does it on its own (whether or not we exercise and / or how much) define health and well-being, but rather it is the way we exercise, the quality in which we exercise and why / how we are using exercise (ie is it to escape or fill an emptiness or to support a connection to our bodies…).

Thank you for sharing Anonymous. Whilst I have not been addicted to exercise, I can relate to the habits and addictions of emotions, food, restlessness and reaction in exactly the same way. And I am sure that the effect on the body is no different really!

To many this would seem far fetch as it would have done to me 5 or so years ago, however slowing working away at my connection and allowing myself to feel before I act has brought about the truth that has been sitting their all along. It is amazing when I look back how I have been searching high and low for something that has been with me always.

Totally agree Susan, ‘…addiction to anything is just a filler for feeling empty instead of feeling the grandness that we all are.’ – we get addicted to the filler that prevents us from connecting to and enjoying our absolute grandness – how insane is that?!

I know that one too, Bernadette: habits and addictions of emotions, food, restlessness, reaction and business also to not feel what I felt inside. Before meeting Serge Benhayon I had no idea what I was doing to myself, how I was fooling myself or how I could deal with it all.

Me too Monika, I too had little idea what was actually going on in myself below the habitual reactions and emotions. It was a surprise when I came to Universal Medicine to realise how cut off I was. Thus it is easy to embrace something without really stopping to feel why we are doing it.

I had the same experience with just about everything in my life. I didn’t often stop and really consider how or why I was doing things. In fact I chose to continue doing things that made me feel unwell. So much awareness has been gained since attending Universal Medicine workshops and presentations. While it is an ever un-folding process, consideration for my body’s well-being is what comes first and foremost – without perfection. At 55 I’m fitter, healthier and more vital than in my mid forties – yah 🙂

Oh Monika I only can agree to what you have written in your honest comment because I too had no idea what I was doing to myself. Instead I was so arrogant to think that I did everything possible to improve myself – hahah that was a bitter pill to swallow as I found out that I was only fooling myself. How to deal with all this ideals and believes and hurts was something I learned from him as well and with all the other students around the world – they too inspired me because of their honesty and courage to look at all what was coming up.

Yes very true Bernadette, and the interesting thing is that we often exchange one addiction for another, i.e. we give up smoking and start to eat more sugar, we give up alcohol and start a vigorous exercising program, we eat ‘healthier’/less but need more TV instead, and all of the above vice versa, etc. etc. All together it is just a coping mechanism and because we have labeled certain things to be good and others to be bad or not so good we think we are doing something different all the while we are just choosing a different flavour while the ingredients stay the same.

What you have said is so true, Esther. I have found that until one stops and really feels what is going on underneath the latest form of distraction we have chosen, we keep going round and round in circles coping with life and not truly enjoying living it.

Great point Esther, that we always believe we need something if we let go of something. The idea of needing to replace something comes from the feeling of not being good enough and that everything that makes us comes from the outside. It seems like if we do not replace one doing/abuse by another doing/abuse there is this massive emptiness opening up we then have to deal with. But this space opening up is actually the space to re-connect to our Soul.

That is a crucial point Rachel, we keep trying to fill a void that is only there because of the method we use to fill it. When we stop to try and fill it up from outside of us and actually connect to it we will feel that we have everything we need already inside of us.

As long as we stay in the ‘this is right and this is wrong’ energy we cannot see the truth of that it all comes back to connecting to our body and to feel that we in our essence know what the body needs to support us. This requires a level of honesty and going against some trends as well.

Great point Esther, we swap one behaviour for another and don’t always look at what exactly feeds that behaviour, it’s really just choosing a different flavour but the end result is the same, we are coping but not addressing our underlying dis-content. And worse we are often in the illusion that because we are doing something different or better that we have improved and yet nothing has truly changed. Until we go underneath and get truly honest and feel what happens to us, why we need these behaviours nothing will change.

Yes it is interesting how we can swap one behaviour for another not really addressing the hurts or emptiness we are trying to avoid. I was never that keen on exercise but sewed and stitched and spun wool and knitted like crazy for a number of years. I did this in part to feel good about myself and because what I did was unique and so I got recognition for it. Craving recognition from outside of ourselves, from others does not ever fill up the void, just makes us hungry for more, so really just the same addictive cycle.

Yes very true Bernadette .We can use anything as a form of an addiction and or comfort in life and yet they all take us away from the one thing we all want and that’s living with loving connections. What’s really cool to note though is that how precious our bodies are and they never give up on sharing their wisdom with us.

I can so relate to this too Bernadette this type of addictive approach is definitely not isolated to exercise and shows that the intent, quality or energy behind why we do something can and has long lasting and often harmful effects.

Thanks for this Anonymous, what you share is one of the deep, dark secrets of how exercise can be used as a drug and way of avoiding dealing with life, in a real way. The fact you were super-fit and exhausted shows that exercise is not the answer but someone we can do to either avoid feeling or to truly support our bodies.

It is a deep dark secret that most are unaware of as we are fooled and have fallen for that it is healthy to exercise. Exercise is good for us but it is clear that we need to deeply consider and feel the quality we are exercising in and also the intention. Is it to be more present with our body and support it’s health, strength and flexibility or is it for escape, image or to fill a void.

Well said Johanna, we are fed pictures and images that exercise is good for us our bodies the endless adverts you see for Gyms, personal trainer and the rise of extreme fitness sports and fitness training. But we then see people pushing themselves really hard, drinking energy boosting drinks and putting on body creams that numb the muscle pain as they lift weights far to heavy for them. Nobody is asking what is the motivation behind this desire to exercise and what is the quality and connection to ones body.

Yes, this is the problem Johanna, we are sold that exercise is healthy, which it is, but it is vital to choose the energy we exercise in and our purpose for exercising in the first place. This is the same for everything in our lives, not just exercise.

Absolutely Johanna, well said. Exercise can be used in different ways, and although it can be exceptionally beneficial for the body there are ways in which it can be damaging. As you say, we need to constantly consider whether we are exercising to truly support our bodies or to try and match a picture/ideal of a ‘fit’ body or athletic lifestyle, which can be dangerous as it is then easy to over do it and exercise more than our body naturally wants to.

I like the way you have written this Joel, ‘deep dark secrets of exercise’, those words are a consciousness breaker because exercise is held tightly in our belief systems as being ‘good’ or ‘healthy’. Certainly when I have visited local gyms over the last years I have often felt the ‘exercise energy’ prevalent there is not in truth ‘healthy’ and when I allow myself to feel it I could say ‘dark’ with people very disconnected from their bodies. This blog offers a great exposé of what we can do with exercise when we use it to compensate for what we are missing.

Josephine I can really relate to what you say. I have felt that many people who exercise to excess are simply very lost and are looking for something to fill the void. In opting for the exercise they have fallen for the illusion that pushing your body hard is a good thing to do. I have seen so many men and women with big muscles walking down the street only to feel that they lack a vitality and joy to life – the big muscles in contra to the sensitive and delicate people that they naturally are.

Need Joel this is a conversation that we are yet to have about exercise. It is still considered widely as the ‘healthy’ option and ‘the more the merrier’ is still a very common approach or belief in the health and fitness industries. There are so many that are physically inactive/underactive that basically the desperate message is ‘exercise no matter what it does not matter how’. However it does matter and there is evidence now emerging including stories like this blog (and I could tell of many more cases I have seen as a health practitioner) that we need a completely different approach to exercise and fitness which begins with the intention behind the exercise.

It’s interesting to consider what the intention or the purpose of exercise is and this is quite likely different for everyone as is the reason why we choose not to exercise. I definitely see more people who do not exercise. But those who do exercise, I am seeing more injuries and long term injuries too and the question never comes up about how we are exercising and is is truly healthy?

Yes Jennifer the purpose of the exercise is very important. I succumbed to the lure of the gym and yoga practice mainly because it gave me an image of myself as being fit and doing the right thing. When I first saw an esoteric practitioner she found my body flexible but also very hard. It took me a while to understand the ‘very hard’ part but I eventually gave up the gym and the yoga and now follow a gentle exercise practice. The relationship I have with my body today is entirely different. I do not punish it anymore. Instead I listen and seek guidance from it.

This is a huge revelation Joel, and something that humanity seems to champion as being good but how can it be when we injure and hurt our bodies in such unloving ways. Who would have thought that this way of acting could be so damaging unless you are someone who has truly started listening to your own body.

I agree Joel, we see super fit people with the so called ideal body, becoming sick and getting diseases, so this way of exercising is clearly not the answer for a healthy body, when we are in fact using exercise to avoid dealing with our issues and hurts inside.

That is very true Joel and really applies to everything including work, food, activism and parenting – meaning we can use all sorts of seemingly “good” things as a drug and way to avoid dealing with life. Anything done without love is harmful (not healthy) and anything to avoid dealing with life is not true and love and truth are the same – so here we have a very simple mathematical formula for health!

Thank you Anonymous – I appreciate the detail of your reality which you have shared, and how Esoteric healing has been a necessary and very normal part of your healing – coming back to not over-exerting your body, honouring how your body feels, and it was actually a way back to you – but only with your willingness to deal with the hurts. It’s amazing how we all live life and do these normal everyday things, for e.g. exercise. But everyone brings their own flavour to it, and why it is being done. Universal Medicine continuously supports me to bring more awareness to how and why I am completing these things. Is it out of lack-of-self-worth, to not numb (both damaging), or to support and love my body (supporting)?

It’s interesting how we can as you say, “use exercise to fill the void” as we would food, drugs or alcohol but because it it exercise it is deemed as “good for us”, without even discerning what type of exercise it is, does it suits or body, how it leaves us feeling afterwards or even why we are choosing to exercise in the way that we do. This is one of the great evils in believing that we are doing something that is truly healthy and beneficial when we are in fact causing ourselves harm.

Living according to whatever ideals and beliefs say is good for you can indeed be a source of evil in the sense that we are separated from feeling the truth of what is right for us and rely on the rule or guideline from outside of ourselves. This is so prevalent with food and eating well in that every few years a new guideline of what is good for you or causes cancer comes out and we jump on that band wagon often without considering what is right for our own individual bodies and circumstances.

That’s very true Jennifer. It’s interesting how attached we are to our beliefs (even if the belief is doing something that is good for us) so much so that we override the clear messages that out body is saying to us. Our bodies take a back seat at the moment rather than being the drivers seat.

Yes Jennifer because if we are drawn into what other’s say is good for us then we are separating from our own connection and what we know to be truth for our bodies. It all brings it back to a choice to connect to what we feel is right for us as individual and not what we are told to believe is right. I see so many people pushing themselves at the gym or running down the street but you can see the lack of connection its really scary. This is a great blog to break those beliefs we hold on what being good for our health really means.

Absolutely. At what point did someone say ‘moving your body – no matter how hard, rough, fast, vigorously, irratically, slow, for short, or extended periods, in competition with others etc’ will always be super healthy for every single body in the world? No one. It seems we have grossly misinterpreted the truth of exercise, and now accept any form of movement as ‘good for you’, regardless of the immense disconnection and harm it causes.

Yes Jennifer, my experience of exercise was one of feeling like I had to exercise for my health and weight control; I’d start gung-ho but end up hating it and giving up. All because I was not feeling what my body needed, which at first would have been a gentle walk because my adrenals were drained. For me it was important to deal with why my adrenals were in a poor state and to learn how to be with my body so that what I eat and how I exercise is in line with what it needs.

Agree Jen and specifically with kids it is seen as the best they can do, exercise as much as they can to burn their energy and get them exhausted and on the other hand fill them up with comfort food as they are burning it off. Double abuse under the banner of “good”.

I agree Jennifer, in recent years the industry has really taken off with sports gear cycling and extreme sports like triathlons and it suits the sports industry that it is deemed as healthy as it is so lucrative. It also suits us as we can lie to ourselves thinking we are being healthy when in truth we are blocking out what we do not want to feel.

When you make that connection between pushing through the tiredness (in the past) and feelings of depression and negative thoughts coming up, I can relate to that. It wasn’t exercise for me, but I have experienced that one things leads to another on this slippery slope of self-abuse.

Yes breaking the cycle of self abuse is key to healing with any addiction. I know how pushing through tiredness has always been a slippery slope for me and recognising this has allowed me to become more self loving in the ways I treat myself so that the negative thoughts do not have fertile ground to grow on.

It is very true Gabriele. I often used to override the simple desire to rest, using food and stimulants to keep me going because there was always ‘so much to do’. Now, when I catch myself doing this, I take a moment out and reflect, how has my day been? What have I achieved thus far? What will my next steps be? Even going as far as confirming and appreciating me in that moment, not only for what I’ve done but for who I am. Far sweeter then any sweet treat and far more motivating then any coffee. A great way to get the days work done.

Thanks Anonymous. This is a sharing I can very much relate to. Especially the part of feeling the emptiness once stopping work to care for my child. I used exercise to fill this deep void at this time too. It had taken many years to learn to be with my body and tailor make gentle ways of exercising for myself. This has been super supportive to my connection I have with myself.

‘Tailor made exercise’ is a great way of expressing this as it makes it very personal when I feel this, knowing that we can have all the knowledge in the world does not mean that we are living truly from our bodies.

Yes I agree with you Johanna, this is enormous, especially in a world where we are taught to run from any unpleasant feeling and rather distract ourselves than stopping and asking ourselves what is truly going on and listening to our bodies.

It’s interesting Ester that we hide and distract ourselves from the negative feelings rather than examine our feelings as to why. There is real growth and connection in reflecting and examining but we usually choose to distract and change, that way we can fool ourselves as it appears we moving forward… But forward to where?

Often we identify with the feels thinking that they’re a part of who we are or just a part of life, instead of taking a moment and asking, how is it that we let these in? What beliefs am I running with about myself and other people that leads me to thinking or feeling this way? Is it possible that I can turn this around? Instead of accepting that that’s just the way life is, we can take a moment to challenge this and open ourselves to another possibility. We are not our thoughts, nor are we our feelings, the moment we stop identifying with them or running away from them we can start to build a life that is free from them and then we just get to enjoy what we have chosen and live how we’re meant to live.

I have been addicted to exercise, alcohol, cigarettes, sugar and the list goes on, however the difference between extreme exercise and the rest of my addictions was that I thought by exercising in a strenuous way I would be offsetting the harm of all the other unhealthy habits I had. The fact is that the intense way I was exercising was just as harmfull as all my other addictions . These days I feel so much healthier by exercising in a slow and gentle way and by no longer consuming foods or drink that dont agree with my body

That’s a very common belief Joe… By exercising you were “offsetting all harm of all the other habits “, such is the esteem around a good, intense work out at the gym, it’s championed as an antidote to excess sugar, food, cigarettes and alcohol we have been programmed to believe we can reverse the self abuse with more unloving abuse.

Wow Joe, amazing and very revealing. We see exercise and different and put it in the ‘healthy’ basket…yet it is just as damaging and equal to the other addictions you mention. I wonder how many drug rehab places use intense exercise programs as part of treatment?

Great point Joe. I was addicted to exercise and ‘being healthy’. Orthorexia it is called. My addiction was to be as healthy as possible – which included exercising as much as possible, not eating (as my acceptable list of foods became increasingly obsolete, and I ruled out any form of fat, or anything that would make me gain weight),
My shifting stick of what I considered ‘healthy’ was the furthest thing from healthy- to the point where I put my entire life in jeopardy and every single part of my health suffered.
We can use health and exercise to compensate, to offset, to cover up, to make us feel ‘better’, but it will never ever leave us feeling the fullness, the juiciness, the absolute gorgeousness in our bodies that making loving choices does. Filling ourselves with self-love is freedom from addiction.

Brilliant Joe and beautifully expressed – “I thought by exercising in a strenuous way I would be offsetting the harm of all the other unhealthy habits I had” – from one extreme to the next, but never really stopping and finding the middle ground were neither the destruction or the corrections need to exist.

It is an interesting concept of using exercise to stimulate our bodies in order to not feel what is really going on underneath. Indeed I think it is a huge epidemic in society; the avoidance of feeling the tension in our bodies which comes from not living in a quality of harmony and love.

Jennifer, I’ve noticed how over the years as society has speeded up and people’s lives have become more demanding and busy, busy, busy then so too have intense exercise and workouts become another part of the to-do list. I would agree that many people use exercise as a way of handling the huge tension building in their bodies from living in this way.

I agree Josephine and Jennifer, it as if life is just getting more and more intense, we run faster and harder, speak quicker, work longer and longer hours and move in a way that is entirely unnatural. We push ourselves in exercise way beyond our limits and see this as healthy regardless of the pain we need to put ourselves through in order to get there.

Very true Fiona. I’ve always found it fascinating how wrestlers, boxers and top athletes are put on pedestals as ‘super healthy’, when it is so obvious that they are pushing their bodies in ways they do not naturally want to be pushed, and some actually look slightly disfigured (particularly the very ‘hench’ men and muscular women) because of their choices to exercise past all means of self honouring.

And then there’s the extreme thrill activities like bungee jumping and jumping off tall buildings and goodness knows what else … some need the huge adrenaline rush to overpower the ache/agony inside of not feeling love, even though it is actually always there. Bring on the expansion of the work of Universal Medicine I say, the world soooo craves to know this although it does not yet know that this is what it wants to know.

So true Josephine – in my case it was the same. Going to the gym was part of my to do list. I was only in the doing mode – I didn’t know, what it means to be in stillness. The result was, I was constantly exhausted. Now I’m starting to discover, what stillness and repose really means.

Well said Jennifer, of course not living the love that we are causes a constant tension that we prefer not to feel, so we go into whatever our diversion therapy is, be it losing ourself in business or busyness, exercising to excess, eating to excess or numbing ourselves with alcohol and or drugs. All are excellent at burying how we are truly feeling and for ensuring that we stay stuck and don’t evolve.

It is interesting how many things we can find to distract ourselves from feeling what we are feeling! Yet deep down we are all super loving, tender, delicate beings so why on Earth would we want to be distracted from feeling this? Could it be that we simply do not want to take responsibility for all of our unloving choices and actions which have led us to where we are today?

James, this is a question well worth asking. It’s painful to be aware of these unloving choices but it’s only by being fully aware of them that we are willing to change. Usually we have to be stopped by some illness, accident or major event in order to stop the momentum but it is possible to return to being the ‘super loving, tender, delicate beings’ that we naturally are.

Hello Jennifer and I would agree. You couldn’t have told me that 5 years ago though, I wouldn’t have listened. It was a case of when you are ‘using’ something like I was using exercise it was going to be difficult to get me to see what I was actually doing. I needed to feel it wasn’t working for me. When I would over exercise or extreme exercise a thought would come into my head about not being able to do it forever. It kept going and going and eventually I became anxious of the day when I wouldn’t be able to exercise like I did. That day came and I was getting more and more tired, exhausted. Not long after I started to speak to Universal Medicine practitioners and then listened to Serge Benhayon, I felt free ever since. Thank you Jennifer.

You make a very salient point here Ray. Looking back it is easy to see what we were doing that buried our feelings for us and equally it is usually pretty easy to see what others are doing by way of distraction. Reaching that point with ourselves where we can honestly see what is not working for us and then being prepared to change it is the point of evolution we all have to reach for ourselves. No-one else can do it for us. We just have to keep repeating and repeating until the penny drops. Having others to reflect that change is possible with blogs like this is, of course enormously supportive.

Yes, very much so Josephine, it is easy to see when we are looking back but whilst we are in it it is a different story. And sometimes it takes a little longer other times not so long until we realise that there is another way and/or that the way we are going about certain things or life as such is not really working so well.

Hear hear Ray, try telling me 30 years ago that my exercising was actually harmful and I would have wondered what planet you were from. I had to come to my understanding that this was not right as I was using it, which I did when my body spoke louder and louder until I had no choice but to listen.

It is an epidemic Jennifer and it’s insidious because exercise in all its forms is seen as healthy. I’ve heard people say they do exercise classes – boot camp style – where they either been close to or actually throwing up because it was so hard. I just go WOW, and that is considered healthy.

Absolutely Jennifer and Sandra it is an insidious epidemic, that we are sold is good and healthy for us. This is a trick as exercise is healthy as long as we have a purpose to connect, to be present with our body and lovingly support it, rather than disregard and dishonour our body or even just numb our selves.

Dear anonymous
Thank you for so clearly nominating what underlied your addiction to exercise and for sharing your surrender to accept and honour where you are at. This is powerful.
I have recently been feeling to expand my exercise routine and have felt some drive and expectation come in around this. It is wonderful to read your blog and feel that I do not need to lose a connection with my tenderness to exercise my body – which I realise now has held me back from committing to exercise in the past. I can and will now simply approach exercise with honesty and a connection to my body and what truly supports it.
Much grace in reading and reviving this blog, thank you.

Exercise, like anything can be used to heal or to harm. Many people categorise exercise as a “good thing” and healthy, without ever questioning that it can indeed be harming. As you have pointed out Anonymous, exercise can be an addiction, just like drugs or alcohol, we use it for relief, to cover up what is really going on for us. I have used exercise and yoga like this in the past. However, since coming to the work of Universal Medicine, I now exercise in a completely different way, a way where I am connected with my body, that is gentle, nurturing, empowering and supportive. Exercising in this way is part of my overall healing program.

We see nothing wrong with pushing our bodies to do more and often it is encouraged. I used to go to aerobics twice a week and go the gym regularly when I was in my 20s mainly because it gave me relief from the pressures of the new job I was in. I noticed that I needed more so I took up running as well. I can see that using exercise in this way can easily become addictive and somewhere along the line the body speaks up … and for me my knee gave in so it all had to stop for quite some time. I am glad it did as I was using it as an excape from life and I was not dealing with what was going on.

I’ve certainly thought this way in the past Donna – that exercise can’t possibly be harming; it’s healthy without question! As you say many people have this mindset but never stop to consider than just like almost anything out there, exercise can be harming when used in the wrong ways e.g. to check out, distract ourselves, push our bodies and so forth.

I can definitely relate to this, having used exercise in the past in the same way I can even remember crying after arriving at a yoga session only to find it was too full and there was no space for me. An important sign that things where not right at home. Working on my relationship with myself has been a revelation and something that continues to have its challenges and is always so worth the time and effort.

You make a great point Amina, yoga has also carefully been disguised and championed as being “good for us” but yet, like many other forms of exercise it has become an addiction for many, who contort their body in different shapes and stretch to an excess which simply offers relief from feeling what is really there in the body. This is a far cry from the origins of yoga which means union and connection.

I notice this too regarding to yoga, as if it is a magic word ‘ but I do yoga’ and this would explain that the person is working on the connection with themselves. It is very obvious to see that it is used as a solution for the extreme pressure they put themselves under because of not being enough and prooving themselves constantly. And I certainly have used yoga in this way, in the yoga class I was constantly comparing myself with the others in how far I could stretch myself, or how long I could hold a certain position. Lot of the times I had a severe headache the day after, instead of feeling honestly how I frustrated my body I learned it had to do with clearing the body. I now know this has never been the case, I was using an energy, never being enough to override what my body was telling me all along.

The yoga known today has totally lost its true purpose and power. It is reduced to an exaggerated exercise program, where in truth it contains the power of union and stillnes. It is about movement in stillness not about function.

Exercise is so commonly used as a way of dealing with pent up feelings that result as stress and tension in the body. It is accepted as a useful way of doing this, without questioning what really happens when we don’t support ourselves to sort out how we feel and let things go. Everything opens up and becomes clear when we are willing to look deeper into the habitual ways we do things instead of skimming around on the surface and just doing things because it is accepted as normal.

I remember when I had my daughter that I had moved out of town and had to give up running and the particular style of quite cardiovascular yoga (ashtanga) that I was into because it wasn’t available locally, as well as the cafes and stimulation I was accustomed to and I was confronted by the emotional roller coaster of feelings I found myself having. So my experience mirrors the essence of your blog because I saw that I had been using these things to distract and numb me from simply not being with myself and supporting myself to be still and see what was playing out. The frustration, anger, desire to control and even rage that would emerge at times shocked me in their intensity. This experience showed me the truth of how we use yoga, exercise and other forms of stimulation to mask what we are otherwise not dealing with.

There are so many things we use as a drug to run away from ourselves!
We continually ‘run’, stay in perpetual movement, trying not to feel what is there. And yet, when we stop this momentum and let ourselves feel, what is there could not be more delicate, fresh and simply lovely. Through esoteric healing and esoteric yoga, I have discovered that the deeper I go in letting go of feelings and hurts, the less there is to run away from and the more stillness, warmth and presence becomes who I am.

Addiction to anything will deplete and harm the body, but what is so insidious with exercise addiction is how easy it can fly under the radar. It is easy to hide – after all you are looking after yourself right? I remember in my 20’s when I would rather go to the gym than socialise – it very much controlled me because it was the way that I managed my weight and body shape. I was so glad when that was over as there is no joy in exercising or being driven by something.

This is such a great point Marika, exercise addiction is not usually looked upon like that. As you say, people make comments like…..you are looking after yourself!! When in fact it could be quite the opposite. I know for me the drive that come with going to the gym, wanting to exercise, was coming from a lack within, it wasn’t to truly exercise, but to work on my weight of body shape. It is definitely one that doesn’t get the exposed attention it really needs.

“My daily routine was built around the exercise class times and if I couldn’t get there then it had to be a power walk. ” This is probably something many woman can relate to when being home and not working anymore when having young children. It is sad to see that in our society almost everything is about what we do and especially about if we work or not to define our worth. This then easily result in many people feeling not enough when having to be home with the children even though this just as important as anything else. I love how you have turned this around.

I agree Lieke, this is a time, having stopped working and being at home with my new young sons, when my exercise routine started to escalate into an addiction. It felt good, and was perceived to be healthy, the problem was I was not choosing to exercise to build connection, in fact I had never heard of this 30 years ago!

Since studying with Universal Medicine and developing a nurturing and more connected relationship with my body, the way I exercise has completely changed. I now really look forward to exercise whereas in the past it was always such a chore and a must do because of the way that I pushed my body and for many years was part of my job. Listening to what my body needs on a daily basis and exercising according to how I feel absolutely rocks. If I push past this I can really feel the harm that I am doing to my body and well-being, whereas in the past I was so numb and focused on an outcome that I would just override what the body was clearly telling me.

I love the way you have exposed exercise Anonymous and how it can be used as something that is anything but supportive for our bodies to live in harmony and flow. In the past I, too have felt the lure of exercise as something that both helped me deal with the tensions I was not facing in my life and also using it to make my body look a certain way – a way that was more ‘attractive’ so although I enjoyed the activity of movement there were definitely underlying hooks there. I now enjoy exercise that is teaching me to move with my breath in a way that supports my connection to my body, a very different experience.

I can relate to that too Josephine – exercising because I think a ‘fitter body’ will be more attractive, or look better in a swimsuit etc… What I’ve found (to much disappointment haha) is that although I exercised fairly regularly it was not consistent, nor was it very loving/effective because of this expectation towards the result. I’m trying a different way of doing it – where it’s about connecting with me and not just wanting to be thinner or have a ‘bikini body’!

This is a groundbreaking blog. Thank you, Anonymous. Exercise is regarded as a healthy choice and recommended by doctors, and those who spend much time and push themselves hard on a regular basis are seen fit and healthy, and I have heard of being ‘addicted to exercise’ but I have always felt a hint of narcissism about it. Here I find a refreshing level of honesty that is now paving a way for true well-being.

“I realised that I was using exercise as a drug to run away from myself.” How many of us use exercise in the guise that we are being healthy, but are in fact are using it to numb and distract from our feelings and can in fact, as you have shared, be harming our health?

Well I can’t say I have ever been addicTed to exercise, I found far easier ways to checkout and fill voids. In fact I never exercised, believing my job was exercise enough. That all changed with many things over the years since being a student of the way of the Livingness and now I try to exercise daily to support that work. Its mad when you look at the lengths we go to to avoid feeling what we really feel.

It seems to me we have 100’s of ways to not deal with and feel what is really going on, drugs and alcohol are the more obvious ones where as exercise still has the connotations that it is always healthy, and healthy it most certainly can be but as you have found exercise needs to be done in a way that is honouring of the body and not just used for pushing away feelings that we do not want to deal with or for a quick adrenaline rush.
This is a blog is amazing and I know will benefit many who have fallen for the exercise illusion of pushing and exerting themselves far over their bodies limits. Thank you for sharing this Anonymous.

This is a very important blog you have written Anonymous. Although not everyone will go though the same lengths to exercise their body, for many the underlying lack of self worth is definitely the reason to exercise. So we try to makes ourselves feel better and on the outside this may even seem true, but on the inside nothing changes. The consciousness around being fit is very strong. For there are also a lot of people who do not exercise from the same lack of self worth and they bash themselves too for not being fit and looking the part.

What an amazing turnaround Anonymous, going from a lack of connection and filling the void with exercise to completely honouring and lovingly caring for yourself and your body. I remember exercising like you described, and I couldn’t function or focus on anything if I didn’t have a plan in place to exercise. Even if I was sick, exhausted or busy I would push myself to exercise, anything to not deal with unresolved issues I had. Since I learned that I’m able to deal with everything I have chosen in life, and get support when I need it I feel completely different about exercise, myself and my body. Thank you for sharing your inspiring story.

Well said Aimee. After realising that the way we exercise, walk, sleep, talk, behave, act etc. isn’t true, it is another step to then change it. I find it incredible that the writer of this blog was able to reflect on how they exercised, and then instead of going, ‘oh no I’ve been exercising in a way that’s harmful I never want to again,’ they tried again but this time in a way that was supportive and loving.

Yes Susie I find if I react when I see how something I have been doing has been unloving, then it usually spirals me back into the same behaviour again. I’ve just started back at the gym again and am loving exercising because I’m making it about my body.

It’s interesting Anonymous how the majority of people would not see exercise as an addiction and think that you had it made seeing as you were not drinking alcohol or eating all of the wrong foods. I used exercise with the belief that if I was fit and healthy and slim then I would feel better about myself and that all the answers were in being slim, but of course they were not. It took me attending Universal Medicine presentations to realise this and that dieting was not the answer; what a relief it was to give it up and now my exercise is of a much more gentler nature, as in walking mostly, with some gentle stretching.

Thank you for sharing Anonymous, I wonder how many people use exercise to numb themselves no different to alcohol or drugs, but because exercise is seen as a way to get fit, healthy and is good for us we don’t see it as an addiction and comes with all the disempowering ways that a drug addict would use to get their fix.

I feel it is a huge step to admit addiction, because this gives the opportunity to address the underlying issues that cause it. But I love how Anonymous has taken herself so much further, in to a healing way with life that not only addresses her underlying hurts, but also is building something for the future for her to stand upon – greater sense of health and well being than ever before.

Anonymous this is a great blog and well done for starting to take charge of this pattern of behaviour. I know many people who exercise for the high and often injure themselves because they overdo it. I also know the feeling of emptiness and the drive to avoid feeling it – for me it wasn’t exercise that I used, but I was left with exhaustion and a compulsion to be ‘doing’ all the time or at least keeping my mind busy. It has been a hard pattern to break, and is a work in progress.

It is amazing to understand that not all exercise is healthy – I used to play squash and I never thought of it being an addiction, but the way we build our lives around the ‘exercise fix’ shows that clearly it can be. As with all our activities, an addiction is simply the way we find to avoid dealing with our hurts – the feeling of misery and emptiness that so many of us experience. Doing simple and gentle exercise that our body loves is great and we can let go of any drive to achieve a result other than general fitness that is suitable for our daily life and the type of work that we do.

What is really apparent to me is how we have branded fitness as ‘good’ and hero it as something that can never be a danger or caution. And yet it can be just as addictive as drugs or alcohol. I know because my relationship with exercise has been one of escape and extremity just to feel I am in control.
It is scary how caught up we can get in exercise, and how we are only encouraged for doing so. And yet is it really supportive? Thank you for your personal sharing anonymous, it has helped me to better understand the true nature of an addictive behaviour.

The lengths we take to separate us from our selves has no bounds and all have the same effect. Too much of anything is never good for you when done in excess. It has not been that many years that Ecstasy appeared and we first heard of people dying from water poisoning!

Thank you, anonymous, this blog brings a completely different perspective to exercise as exercising as you were would usually be seen as a way to aspire to. Seeing how it can be used for relief and as a drug would be revelatory for many and possibly a difficult pill to swallow. Quite often though it is not until the body shows us otherwise that we pay attention. Thank you for sharing the turnaround you have made.

Wow this is so interesting anonymous, it is a common belief that being really ‘fit’ and pushing our bodies with excercises is ‘good’ for us, you expose here that in truth pushing the body is not actually beneficial for our bodies, it is great how you now listen to your body and do not over exert yourself and how beneficial this has been for you.

It’s interesting that something such as exercise that it supposed to be ‘good’ for us can create conditions such as adrenal exhaustion. We are masters at using anything to help us avoid painful feelings, and exercise is one such thing that can be used to numb ourselves. Well done for turning this around.

I’ve also noticed Anonymous how my body has tried to go back into a way of moving that had become normal but which was not natural. When you spoke about doing the Connective Tissue Exercises, which are very gentle but you say “I couldn’t do anything without going into the drive and push of the way I used to exercise. At the beginning, this was all I was able to do for some time.” I remember after having trained in body work (which relied on me applying pressure to the body), how difficult I found being gentle with my pressure was once introduced to practicing the Sacred Esoteric Healing modalities. Now I know my touch to be super gentle thanks to reacquainting myself to working in this way, but it was a shock to feel how conditioned my body had become to moving in such a contrary way.

Great sharing. It is surprising but we can turn anything into an addiction and I know many people who have used exercise in this way, seeing it as the answer to all their woes when in reality it just allows them to bury them so they don’t have to look at them. The emptiness of which you speak is I am sure something that we all have until we don’t have it and to not have it we have to seek and connect to our essence. Once we do this the emptiness is no more. It is so simple but yet we are not taught this information anywhere. Thank God for Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine for bringing this to us.

Exactly Doug and well said. Exercise is paraded with its illusion, because it has tangible physical results that we can prove, but what about the quality that we are actually in? Have we interviewed the famous sport stars the day after their big event and seen how they are? I’m sure it wouldn’t be good, but it is just termed ‘recovery’ to hide the exhaustion that is actually happening.

Harrison what a great point. Exercise is harder to dispute because many parade it’s benefits (and yes the body does need exercise), but what of the quality we do it in, and as you say how about those athletes after their big event – how are you? And more there is an attitude that says you push yourself to extremes for that big event and the body be damned, you expect it to suffer after, but you accept that as part of the price of taking part in the event / competition you may be in. We have it backwards, we should not do anything which does not make the quality of how we are and how we move with our bodies paramount, with exercise or anything.

The feeling of emptiness and loneliness is with so many of us and the use of things including exercise to distract from this is common place and a way of coping with life and something all we feel deep down. A true honouring way of living and choices is being shown to the world by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine and this is exposing what is really going on and giving us a choice. Thank you for this amazing sharing that is so honest and relatable to and opens us up to a true healing way of living with a joy and fullness of all we are.

I was interested to read that you were diagnosed with adrenal exhaustion. A friend of mine was convinced that they were suffering from adrenal exhaustion and was referred by her GP to a consultant at the local hospital. At the appointment the consultant rubbished her claim to be adrenally exhausted and informed her that there was no such thing as adrenal exhaustion! This was in the UK.

Wow Doug that is an example of abuse in health “care”. Adrenal exhaustion definitely does exist, but specialised saliva tests taken over a 24 hour period might be necessary to correctly diagnose it. Most people do know when something is wrong with their body, and they often know what is wrong. A supportive doctor will always work with the person. I hope your friend continues to look for better medical care.

This is an awesome blog exposing the negative side of exercise, which is rarely spoken of because ‘exercise’ is seen as ‘healthy’ and ‘good for you’ but the way it is done doesn’t even come into the equation…yet as you share Anonymous when it is done in an addictive way (in whatever form that may be) it is totally harming to ourselves and our body, and not the healthy pastime that is so often promoted.

I can understand why someone would choose to use exercise to numb what they are feeling, especially with the consciousness around sport and keeping fit being the way it is. We are not taught that pushing the body hard is bad for it but in fact the opposite. Pushing ourselves physically hard is championed but no one really discusses the negative effects of this. Awesome that you have raised this here in the honesty of what has been happening to you, but also awesome that you are offering a different way with gentle connection and insights into why you were attracted to pushing yourself in this way in the first place.

This is so true Michelle, ‘We are not taught that pushing the body hard is bad for it but in fact the opposite. Pushing ourselves physically hard is championed but no one really discusses the negative effects of this.’ It is crazy, I hear friends talk about running and how they have hurt their knees and have heard of injuries from sports such as football, i myself hurt my neck and shoulders in a head stand practicing yoga, these sports and exercises often push the body into unnatural postures and positions and can and do cause damage, but this is rarely discussed, it seems to be a case of ‘get up and get on with it’ and ‘toughen up’ and that the injuries are all part of it. It is lovely that you are more gentle with your body and listen to how it is feeling, i do the same and my body feels great as a result.

Thank you for this super honest blog and even though exercise wasn’t an addiction for me I could feel how it took over your life and finally left you in total and debilitating exhaustion. There are so many ways that we try to fill that emptiness that feels like a bottomless pit, and exercise is one of them, but food, smoking, drinking, gambling are all on the very long list as well. I have come to understand that dealing with the addiction is a start but until we uncover the reason for the emptiness being there in the first place, the removal of one addiction will quickly be replaced by another.

Ingrid agree with you particularly on this point, “until we uncover the reason for the emptiness being there in the first place, the removal of one addiction will quickly be replaced by another.”That is so true. We have to get to the core reason for our emptiness, that is KEY. As you say, otherwise, when we maybe get rid of an addiction, we will find another to replace it.

Thank you Anonymous, what you share confirms how anything we do that is driven and followed to excess is an addiction. You show that at the heart of all addictions is an emptiness, a void and an inability to truly feel what is going on that pushes us on to silence the ache. Thank you for sharing the detail of your ‘lengthy and considered’ steps back to true health supported by Esoteric Practitioners and your doctor. What you share of Connective Tissue and other exercise re-defines traditional beliefs about exercise: it doesn’t have to be hard, driven or excessive, it can be gentle, and connected with how we’re feeling in the moment. True exercise nurtures and honours the body and supports us to live life harmoniously.

A great blog. Exercise can be supportive but only when we listen to our bodies, and not our minds. Learning to say no is tantamount in moving forward with love and appreciation of all that we already are.

Anonymous, adrenaline exhaustion is something I can relate to. Thank you for sharing one contributory factor, giving our power away because of an inability to say No. Each time we do this our energy is ‘zapped.’ Do this persistently and the body becomes depleted.

Wow, something to really sit with. If we are unable to say no to something that does not feel right then we are giving our power away and of course our body is impacted. No wonder we become exhausted to the degree we do.

A very poverful blog Anonymous – thank you. ‘I thought I was doing well by not using alcohol and I thought I was okay because what I was doing was contributing to my health and fitness so that I could better cope with life. However, it had an insidious effect on me, and my relationships: nothing was being dealt with, instead only being further buried.’ How well you have described the trap that so many people fall for – and how amazing that you have made a complete turn around and now acknowledge that your hurts needs to be dealt with for true and lasting healing to happen. Just beautiful.

I can definitely relate to this blog as I also used to be addicted to exercise and used it as a drug to suppress what I was feeling and to relieve myself of anxiety and tension. I also used to tell myself that it was ok because compared with other addictions that I saw around me, it appeared the healthier option. However this was an illusion as over-exercise or exercise without connection with the body first causes damage to our health and my body still bears the scars of this period of my life.

I really appreciate the opportunity to understand how exercise can be used in a harmful way. I had always had a sense of this but grouped ‘unhealthy exercise’ with eating disorders or trying to lose weight in an unhealthy way. I hadn’t really considered the fact that we can actually use the way we move our bodies to bury our emotions until the last few years. Many people feel that releasing pent up stress at the gym is healthy but this blog points to the truth that the ‘release’ we experience is really just a cover up for the situation that led us to feel stressed in the first place.

Yet on some level we know all to well that we can use how we move our bodies to hide and burry our emotions. As a young child I loved to run because I knew when I ran it was like nothing else in the world existed. I had worked this out as a very young child.

I also really appreciate the opportunity to understand that exercise can be used in a harmful way. A couple of years ago I was sharing with a friend that when I cycled through the city I would arrive at my destination feeling stressed, harassed, tired and sweaty. She asked if I could just cycle at the weekends. I was so fixed on squashing everything I was feeling that I hadn’t wanted to feel the effect it was having on the body, and so hadn’t wanted to consider anything but a painful and pushed way to exercise. When this idea came from someone who was clearly living with joy in their body, then I embraced it. I now apppreciate that I can inspire others by sharing that I love walking, that I do light exercise and do as much as I feel to do. I find that people pay a lot of attention when they hear about more gentle ways to exercise.

It’s tricky Leonne, because exercise can give people a false high, so we believe that it is good for us when it is done this way. But shortly after I know I feel very exhausted. When I exercise in a gentle way that is not pushing my body, I find it is really lovely and I can keep a steady rhythm for even a longer period.

Absolutely Luke, there is no difference, many people would say don’t be so ridiculous, but, it is easy to come up with a plethora of excuses when we don’t want to feel the truth. If we honestly and openly look at one part of our life where we are living a lie, then it can be like wowa and opening a huge can of worms, or possibly gold depending on how we look at it – just what else is there we might have to feel and admit is not working for us, not true or real.

Absolutely Luke and Liane, we are not short of drugs, our choices are limitless, they can look “good” or “bad” but they all serve the same purpose to avoid the pain of not being who we are. As these get exposed more and more people will be given the true freedom of choice.

So true anything can be a drug if it is to avoid the pain of not being connected with who we are.
So we seem to have the obvious ones… and the less obvious ones that are considered okay…. like food. exercise. yoga. shopping. social media. anything that is filling a void.
The problem is many of these are consider ‘supportive’ and even encouraged.

Hello Luke and great point. Some may read this and have a doubt but look at how we truly ‘use’ these things. If you are a ‘user’ at times it can be very difficult to bring you to see what your drug is actually doing to you. I love this blog because there is the ‘better than’ crew which I can relate to. You look sideways at others and compare yourself to them. So when I was drinking I would look around and find someone who appeared to be doing something worse so I would feel better about what I did. All along not wanting to feel what was going on. Whenever I had to stop, take a break or anything similar everything would flood in and I would run away from it or go to one of my ‘drugs’. This is a great topic to chat about, thanks Luke.

What you share is so true Luke, anything can be a drug. Anything that gives us an artificially induced emotional high or oomph and that feeds the drama of our lives can be addictive and what we use to stimulate us or to distract and numb ourselves from what we don’t want to feel.

This is an incredible, powerful and supportive blog. Many people exercise in a way that is not truly supportive for our body, assuming we are super fit or healthy, when in truth, as you have exposed and shared exercise can be used no different to a drug, to numb, escape, check out or abuse ourselves.

Yes Gyl, I agree. We can exercise to truly support our body or we can exercise to dudgeon our body, dull our pain and literally check out and escape. Exercise was my drug of choice for a long time too. I wouldn’t be able to function and go to work if I hadn’t had my morning ‘fix’ of strenuous yoga or a run and jump in the ocean. I thought at the time this was to invigorate and revitalise, but what I now know was that it was a coping mechanism for not wanting to feel the anxiety I had about going into working life where I had little confidence at the time. All the exercise it did is provide a momentary relief. The anxiety would still be there, and my behaviours would be instructed by that, working life was challenging because of how I felt about myself. Later in life, after coming across Universal Medicine I started to take responsibility for this anxiety and angst for being in the world and addressed these issues — and now exercise for me is very different. I still exercise every day but I don’t freak out if I miss a day, and every day is different in terms of the type of exercise. It’s about what my body needs to feel supple, open and strong. It’s no longer about getting an adrenaline rush that will give me a brief escape from the realities of life.

This is really exposing a trick we play on ourselves Katerina, using something to numb us as relief from anxiety or escape from the realities of life. The best thing we can do for ourselves to prepare for a busy life is to live with balance that includes exercise for connection, healthy nutrition, rejuvenating sleep, and general living with love. Anxiousness cant enter that environment.

This blog just goes to show how anything outside of ourselves can be used as something to fill the inner void. But Universal Medicine has shown that that inner void cannot be filled from the outside and not matter if it is perceived as healthy for us like over exercising or very obviously harming like alcohol nothing can quell those feelings unless it comes from within us first. I loved reading the part that whenever you listen to the tiredness the negativities disappear. How often and how many of us seek something on the outside to make those thoughts seemingly go away? An inside issue requires an inside solution and being aware of our bodies and how they feel and how our inner-most core feelings I have found to be one of the greatest healing tools ever.

I found the same Leigh and Melinda -even just going for a gentle walk when I
have been caught up in stuff, connecting to my body again will always shift the thoughts that come, the quality increases and I will be able to return to what I was doing in a much improved quality of energy.

Love how you expressed this comment, Leigh, especially your point “But Universal Medicine has shown that that inner void cannot be filled from the outside”. How true that is, and after years of disappearing into books to fill that void, I am so grateful to Universal Medicine, and Serge Benhayon for helping me realise that I need to find my solutions from within myself, deep within.

I used to exercise in the same way as you, I would train twice a day, pretty much every day and prided myself on being super fit, but really I was super sad. I used exercise like a drug – to get high, it was a quick fix to feel better about myself, and I would also say to toughen up, to not feel the huge sadness and lack of self worth inside. I exercised to extremes, it was an addiction, for example I would wake in the morning, shot of thick homemade espresso, run to the gym, do a weight or interval training session, bus back home, Uni or work , then class at lunchtime and or gym again after uni /work. If I missed a day or session I would freak out. But the thing is I was praised for this way of living, and how I looked, which I would say also feeds peoples addiction to exercise. This all started I would say started around my mid teens. Even when practicing yoga I did the same, to extremes, two classes a day, or at home. Now the connection I have to my body and way I exercise has completely changed, it comes from a foundation of love rather than abuse. I walk, swim and lift weights, all the time listening to my body, what it is saying to me, not pushing myself and knowing my intent is not to make myself look better, but exercising in a way that supports me for life and work. By that I mean I know I spend a lot of time standing for work, so I make sure I do exercises to support and strengthen my legs.

I love what you are sharing Gyl, especially how you support yourself now with exercise. It shows us how important exercise is to support us in our everyday, but that we can also go beyond what is needed and then dealing with the knock on effects of that. It’s interesting that society does not differentiate between exercise that is healing and that which is harming and it’s just all deemed as being good for us because it’s about being active. To me this belief is part of the reaction to not exercising at all and having it being all or nothing, which is very obviously a lie. Exercise really is for every body and it’s the how we exercise that is they key.

‘Exercise really is for every body and it’s the how we exercise that is they key.’ Absolutely and yet we have so many that are at the extremes of over exercising and those that never do any and both have resultant health issues. I have veered between the two extremes for most of my life because I was never able to exercise whilst listening to my body – I would always tend to go flat out to get it over as quickly as possible and never considered that it was something I could enjoy and take as a moment to connect more deeply with myself. I have recently started doing a regular exercise class and am really enjoying listening to my body while doing it and the feeling of building a deeper strength and true vitality from my commitment to myself.

This is a great thing to draw our attention to: that it is not what we do but the energy we do it in. Who would ever think exercise was bad for you? But from the experience described here it is easy to feel how even something deemed ‘healthy’ when done in excess, is yet another vice used to run from the love that we are. We run to hide the fact that our brakes are on in terms of our expression of love. It is truly exhausting to hold back our love as your story so clearly portrays anonymous, thankyou.

Exactly Elizabeth. This is my experience also. The more love we express, the more we have to ‘give’ and therefore, the more we will be able to receive. Yet as a humanity, we have taken this divine equation and twisted it so as to now operate under the impression that if we ‘give our love away’ we will be depleted because of it! Then comes the building of the walls of protection, the fortresses in which we hide, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the very walls we build to safeguard our love, are the structures that ‘attack’ us in the sense that they inhibit our natural expression of it…and thus the exhaustion ensues. We can run but never hide from the love that we are. Love just keeps on loving, no matter the distance or structures we place between us, nor our chosen ignorance to not see it.

yes Liane, we are under the misapprehension that the more we give the more we will exhaust ourselves, but so we shall if this comes from a resentment and emptiness which has to find the energy from somewhere. When I hold back I feel stagnant and hard and then when I feel I have to do or give on top of this I have to summon up the energy to do it going more hard in the process, the resentment building in my body. This is very depleting. When I express how I am feeling however in the moment that stagnation doesn’t get an opportunity to build. If we are naturally made to express in our fullness then there is an abundance of energetic supply as there is an expansion, joy and a vitality in it.

Awesome comment Liane. I agree. It is extremely exhausting to hold back our love. I was never into any sports or any extreme additions but I felt exhausted simply from not living true to who I am, expressing love and truth. It takes so much more energy and the harmful form of energy to suppress who we are.

Essentially we are exhausted from doing nothing, our lack of true expression and the void of activating our bodies by living who we are, leaves us feeling lifeless. In complete contrast from the inner source of vitality and energy that naturally flows when we live the real us.

I can honestly say I have never been addicted to exercise, actually it has been the opposite. I could never get into the whole pushing myself as my body just couldn’t cope and I would get sick. This made me feel like I wasn’t on par with where others were at with their bodies so over the years I kept attempting to exercise like I saw most other people do. It was a relief to hear Serge Benhayon present on exercise, that it wasn’t about overriding your body and pushing through. It is about gently and lovingly exercising your body and building up fitness. Now this is something I could work with! I very much enjoy exercising nowadays although I am still not consistent in this area, I will be one day…

I can so relate to what you are saying, it was a relief to hear Serge Benhayon presenting the truth about exercising. It never felt good to me to push hard so that it hurt my body. But I used the gym to escape from my false relationship with my partner. That alone already hurt, without moving the body. Training the body to look good and to show my body was pretty much self abusive, and manifesting the frustration with every move, now I have come out of a big momentum here. Thanks to myself and Serge Benhayon not holding back that which is the truth.

This is a really brilliant blog. How many of us see exercise as a drug? You’ve opened my eyes to the fact that anything we use to avoid, distract and take ourselves away from what we are feeling is a drug. A really brilliant blog and one I will definitely revisit.

Same for me Shevon, it really does open our eyes up for sure. I agree anything we use to distract ourselves can be used an addiction, like a drug. It is an extremely healing blog for us all to read, especially for people who are addicted to sports and exercise. It is so honest, inspiring and deeply exposing of why we make certain unloving choices, how they control us and affect us. It show us that there is another way, a way to truly connect to our body, to ourselves, to the way we exercise, work, live and to do everything lovingly and gently without the need to escape, numb or abuse body. It inspires us to stop running away from our feelings, to allow ourselves to feel and heal.

Yes, very true, used in this self abusive way, exercise is a drug and is no longer healthy but harmful.. and what is worse is the illusion that it is healthy.
When I think about it, there is even the term “gym junkie”. There is a whole lot of truth in that nickname.

I was never much into exercise so it is a real eye opener for me to consider the fact that excessive exercise is really no difference than the energy of taking drugs. This is a huge revelation and one that needs to be understood.

Thank you Anonymous – another absolutely power-packed and highly inspiring blog. I love the way you write with such clarity and understanding of your return path home to the Love that you / we all are.
In choosing to ‘meet yourself coming back’ the true healing steps inspired by Serge Benhayon, founder of Universal Medicine have brought many extra-ordinary changes – totally amazing to read and
yet, so ordinary and new- normal at the same time, thus, so accessible to everyone.

Our society has it back to front when it comes to exercise. We see exercise to be an activity that pushes us to our physical limits and this induces good health, yet if this idea where true why do our top athletes still get sick and suffer from a range of health ailments. Maybe our bodies are telling us how to exercise through what we feel while exercising, but instead we are taught when we feel the burn or exhaustion to push through because this is when we will receive the most benefit.

Yes, we are taught that there is ‘no gain with no pain’, that to be healthy we have to push through the pain barrier, grit our teeth and tough it out. This is actually exhausting and damaging to our health. It is back to front. What if we were taught to exercise gently, listen to what our bodies tell us and to honour what we feel?

Yes so true Toni, when you simply observe it, it does not make sense we have to push and exhaust our bodies to get fit. Shouldn’t this come with ease and simplicity? I am not saying to not exercise but yes the way can be gentle and loving instead of pushing the body.

You are so right there Toni, back to front and upside down. I was fooled by that way of exercising hard and disconnected, in disregard of my body with food, sleep, alcohol and a hard way of living so that my exercise was just a further magnification of my disregard. For me now exercise is more like meditation as I develop connection to my body and treat it as sacred because it is my best teacher and closest connection to god. I can’t do that with earphones on.

To be honest, to understand if we are tired and then to accept it and to act on it by taking it slowly or resting is very important in honouring our body again.
This way the body can also give other clear signals. From there we can build a true relationship with ourselves.

I hadn’t thought of using exercise as a drug to run away from oneself , but can feel exactly that that is what can happen. It surprises me how lots of people who are tired after a heavy day at work go running. I have never experienced such a lift like that from running but can see how it could be like a drug. The pace of life can be very exhausting for many people, it’s really great to read how you feel so different now.

Anything that is used to numb and take us away from feeling the truth of a situation should be considered a drug for it is abusing the body in essentially the same way as that of a drug by dulling us down and making us ‘heavy’, perhaps stimulated, damp within us and not a aware of what is going on around us. No matter how ‘good’ or healthy a behaviour can be labelled if it is coming with this intent is is never something that will truly support us.

It is common to hear the term ‘gym junkie’ so its clear we know there’s an addiction at play, but there is still a tendency to see it in only extreme cases. What you show here Anonymous is any time we seek outside of ourselves there’s a never-ending pursuit that leaves us fatigued. This form of reaching is like a marathon with no end, except for when it dawns on us it’s not one we have to run. How curious that under our nose the whole time lives our beauty, just waiting for us to exercise, stretch and enjoy.

Wonderful expressed Joseph – I like your words “marathon with no end”. That is how my life felt in the last years. Always looking for something in the outside world. Now I know there is nothing I can find outside myself, I just have to look inside to connect to my beauty.

As a young girl I really was not good at exercise at all. Running was not my thing, and competitive sports just paralysed me with fear. I only got into extremes in exercise and sport as a twenty year old. An accumulation of injuries now stands as testament to the years of brutalising martial arts, fencing, and hard core yoga.

Similarly Rachel, running and I never hit it off, yet from Ashtanga Yoga – to Aikido – and then on to the gym with a Personal Trainer, it all came to a close after a couple of rolled ankles, and parting gift of a torn calf muscle.

Yes, I’d love to see that too Rosie. We can see it in exercise, but also ‘diets’, ‘cleanses’ and all sorts of practises that get sold to us as ‘healthy’ when in truth they separate us from our connection to our bodies and therefore our true health.

Ah yes, I too ignored sport my whole life only to be swallowed by ‘hard core yoga’ in my 20s and 30s. How perfectly strange that is…that yoga became something hard core when in-truth it is the simplicity of our union with ourselves, each other and the All that we are a part of. It is the work of our wayward spirits that seek to make an arduous task out of something so simple and true. The path back to our Soul is through the love within our hearts and while gentle movements can greatly assist, it has nothing to do with elaborate twists and turns of our bodies to the point that we are blissed out of them. No matter how impressive this may look to our eyes, you cannot fool the wisdom we each hold deep within our bodies and within our every particle forever designed to respond to the call of love.

I remember those hard core yoga classes. They really were painful and I really did not enjoy them. Yet I subscribed to the belief that this was good for my body yet I cannot deny that I knew that this was untrue. I also did karate for many years and achieved my black belt. I hated that too yet I became identified with how cool it was to have my black belt. In so many ways, I chose to override what my body was telling me. Looking back my body spoke loud and clear almost to the point where it is ridiculous that I did not listen.

I love your line: We cannot fool the wisdom we each hold deep within our bodies and within our every particle forever designed to respond to the call of love. That is very beautiful and resonating deep.

I was the same as you describe Rachel, every gym class at school I would be paralysed with fear and I have been bullied about this by classmates because I would be a factor of stagnation for the group because I did not cope with the pace. But when I started to do yoga when I was eighteen it was never about a connection with the body but just pushing myself hard to be the number one of the class. My intention was never a true connection with my body or feeling equal to the others but the same as used in sports, ‘I am the winner”.

It really does come down to the intention behind whatever it is that we do.
If we exercise to improve or achieve, to fill the emptiness or push down the emotions than the activity itself will be very harmful to the body. The body hardens and the exhaustion develops.
If we exercise in connection with the body never doing more or else and always in a quality of care than the results are felt in the flow and harmony within the body. We always have a choice.

“I thought I was doing well by not using alcohol and I thought I was okay because what I was doing was contributing to my health and fitness so that I could better cope with life. However, it had an insidious effect on me, and my relationships: nothing was being dealt with, instead only being further buried.”
Inside we do know something is not ok, but we just don’t want to own up and deal with our hurts. In our society today exercise is seen as super healthy and never questioned. The quality we move in is important and also why we do what we do. Our bodies always know what we are doing and ‘report’ back to us.

Thankyou for your sharing Anonymous “I used exercise to fill the void.” I didn’t use exercise but I kept myself busy all the time – doing, doing. All to avoid the deep feeling of emptiness inside me. Thanks to Universal Medicine and the amazing support I am receiving I am coming back to the real me and feeling my beingness before do-ing.

Me too I used exercises to run away from an unhappy life and from myself. Focussing to look good and sexy, what an illusion that I was running with, and it was so overtaking my life and focus. It actually drained my energy out of my body, to always push hard to feel that I had done something good for myself to hold this image of being healthy and sexy.

You saying that you have learned to stop as soon as you feel tired was inspiring and a ‘light bulb’ for me because I have the inclination (or perhaps drive is a better word!) to push on when simply taking a moment would be so much more supportive.Thank you anonymous.

Many would say doing exercise is a good thing. We can get away with harming ourselves for a very long time when we get backing from the majority of society who think it’s a good or alright thing to do. What you have clearly expressed anonymous is when we do something for the wrong reasons it can be very harming.

Very harming indeed, so it stands to reason to really explore the intention behind all we do so that we become clear and make our choices accordingly, for the love of our self and all others too, as all are affected by each choice and its’ intent.

That’s so true Debra. There is nothing wrong with exercise, it is an absolutely crucial part of our lives if we want to maintain a consistent level of energy and vitality, but when it’s done in excess, like anything, it is only harming to the body. Society champions pushing the boundaries and pushing our bodies to the absolute enth degree as if they were science experiments, waiting to see how far it can go before it explodes.

I agree Elodie, that there are healthy ways to exercise and we do need exercises.
The only difference is where are we with ourselves when we exercise and with what intention are we moving our body, and are we honouring its signs and voices? I know for myself that I want to start a program to train my body in a gentle way.

It’s great that you’ve addressed this terrible feeling inside yourself that you later could identify as emptiness. It really is something we need to talk about. Like yourself I struggled to understand and address this same feeling, trying many things in an attempt to make it go away. It wasn’t until I found the work of Serge Benhayon that I began to really understand why this emptiness was there and truly heal it by reconnecting to myself. It’s a strange world we live in where we are not in any way encouraged to be ourselves. It’s no surprise we find ourselves in the messes we do filling our lives with activities that barely stem the misery of that emptiness, but devastate the body. Great to read about your way back through it all.

Hello anonymous, thank you for a topic that I easily relate too. This line, ” I realised that I was using exercise as a drug to run away from myself.” I can say was absolutely true for me. At one stage in my life when I couldn’t stop thinking I would run, literally trying to run away from my problems. I would run further, faster but I knew I couldn’t keep it up forever. I was encouraged by my doctors as well to run, exhaust myself so I could sleep at one point in my life. Since working with Universal Medicine I still exercise but I do it to connect to my body, to feel the muscles and no more running away. I enjoy the gym still but not fixated on it and have it as part of my daily routine or rhythm. I am very appreciative of the support from Universal Medicine to bring me back to another way of living with exercise and not using it as a tool to not feel or see what is going on around me. Exercise really supports me in everything I do. Thank you again.

It’s bananas that even our medical profession, whom we turn to, often in desperation, are still yet to become fully aware of all the body has to show us. Living from our head certainly takes us nowhere but sleeping from exhaustion does little more. Once we take a moment to hear and feel our bodies whispers everything is revealed.

Another great sharing Ray, that we can use exercise as a solution instead of really addressing and looking at what the issue is. So using running to exhaust yourself so you can sleep instead of being supported to look at why you are not sleeping and addressing this.

Hi Raymond, I can relate to your experience as I too ran to escape. What is amazing is that this is encouraged and congratulated by many. I remember running 50Km off road one day and celebrated with running friends for days afterwards. I know if I had really listened to my body I know it would not have wanted me to run never mind celebrate how far I had run.

Beautiful sharing Raymond. ‘I am very appreciative of the support from Universal Medicine to bring me back to another way of living with exercise and not using it as a tool to not feel or see what is going on around me. Exercise really supports me in everything I do.’ – you have summed up beautifully the same appreciation I feel for Universal Medicine. As I have turned my approach to exercise around and have developed a loving relationship with exercise that now honors and supports who I am as I live my day.

Yes we need the exercises once they are in the right intension and not pushing the body, but connecting to it and in this connection going gently with the weights. This way it is fun to do and not a burden.

I giggled when I read this line – “This was in the eighties when aerobics had just started and the classes were more organic and less frenetic than they are now” because when I think eighties aerobic classes I think lots of bright coloured lycra, big hair doos and big big dance moves!

True Sarah, but it also highlights just how much more imbedded the world has become in its patterns of behaviour. There is so much more available now in the exercise world, and because it is becoming a more and more refined science, it encourages people to push themselves more and more – whether that is into getting big (a known problem for some men now), super fit, super stretchy. But no one is asking why, or what the long term consequences are.

Haha yeah I thought that too Sarah and then I also thought about how much exercise and life in general has changed since then and gone to more extremes. I was watching a youtube video the other day where there was an exercise trend where women were pushing themselves so hard that they were wetting themselves during the class but kept on going. When they were interviewed they were proud of how far they had pushed their bodies and didn’t question it. To me this is not a natural way of exercising.

This is such a power-full line – “I didn’t know how to deal with the difficulties I had in my relationships, or with my lack of self-worth. I would withdraw, become frustrated, tense or angry and I didn’t feel that it was okay to be feeling any of this”. This is so much of how we are all living at the moment – what ever the difficulties are, we do withdraw and become frustrated and angry – it is like our main modus operandi. It has only been through becoming a student of Universal Medicine and listening to the presentations of Serge Benhayon that I have discovered there is another way and whilst I still go into that default mechanism many times, I am often choosing another way as well. Which is to stay with myself, and express what is going on – as lovingly and as truth-fully as I can.

Thank you Anonymous, for a wonderful sharing of your journey from depression and adrenal exhaustion. I can relate to much of what you have shared about the emptiness that you felt when you stopped work to have your children. Being at home on your own with little ones, can be very isolating, and I definitely felt that myself, with very few neighbours surrounding me. The way that we identify with what we do in our paid jobs etc. would possibly have something to do with that. When no longer out in the working world, one can then feel quite a lack of self worth, unless we already have a grounding of our own personal worth. Looking back, I certainly did not have that, had little confidence or feeling of my worth, but did not realise that until I met Serge Benhayon and began attending presentations through Universal Medicine, also enjoying all the esoteric modalities that you have mentioned with the esoteric practitioners over the past 9 years. Looking way back, I can see many similarities to what you have described, although I did not get into exercise addiction, my ‘go to’ when really upset was to go out into the garden and dig furiously. But my other main retreat was into reading. Disappearing into books was my addiction. I am so grateful to Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine, although I was never diagnosed, I would suspect that I suffered from a mild depression for much of my life, before I began my journey back to me, thank goodness.

You’re a living example of how conventional medicine and complimentary medicine can work in partnership to support someone with addiction. Exercise in the form of addiction is incredibly insidious when we live in a world that reveres health and wellbeing and showers praise on people who are seen to have the dedication and commitment to attend the gym and classes with such regularity and discipline. Like anything though, when used to numb, distract and disregard the pain or hurts of what is truly going on in life, it can turn into a true form of self-abuse, bringing with it the kind of medical conditions you have experienced. Thank you for sharing your journey.

Thank you Anon for sharing your experiences with us. The belief we need to be super fit to be healthy is a very insidious one. I recently was on a plane full of athletes coming back from a well known marathon and I was listening to them all talk about how their bodies had broken down, before, during or after the race and sharing how they were able to push through and what they had to do to their bodies to be able to do that. I once was like that, unable to see that that was not true health, and my only way of undoing it was to be honest about what I got from being so tough on my body. For me it was to not feel. Thank you again Anon for opening up this much needed discussion.

Thanks Anonymous – I can see where exercise has also been used as a distraction in my life. Like you and many others, I would get feedback from others who praised me for my dedication and capacity to keep pushing myself. I am still someone who works hard but the difference now is that I am aware of how my body is travelling at the time and adjust how I am doing things accordingly, or even stop all together.

It is so common for people to see exercise – particularly running but not only limited to that, as a way of escaping. I know many who love to run because it feels like you get to run away from our problems and leave the body suitably exhausted so that you can’t feel anything anymore. However, running away from something never solved anything, and it leaves people in the illusion that its changed or resolved when it hasn’t.

Well said Rebecca, that’s a great example with the running to try and run away from something. And the damage done when we think that we’ve left something behind but really have just buried it deeper and are still being affected by it.

This is a really important subject that you raise here Anonymous. We are sold that exercise and sports are beneficial for us yet they do so much harm that is rarely mentioned. Not only is it a drug, as you share, but also they are a cause of so much physical injury leading to illness and violent competition between individuals, clubs and nations – the same energy that is in war.

That does make me consider the Olympics Jonathan, as this is hailed as a marvellous thing. Look how the people taking part in those games are admired for their athletic prowess and it seems to me that they are just fighting each other on behalf of their country – it’s like putting one warrior up from each country and getting them to fight it out for a medal. But having just read this blog it does make you wonder what sort of lives these athletes have and the addictive habits which would have to be there to compete at that level.

Great point Jonathon Stewart. The amount of sporting injuries is enormous. Yes, exercise is important, but it is overdone and usually to the extreme. An injury during exercise or sport is considered a nuisance, but it is a message from the body. Because medicine can do a patch up job so well and this is accepted is the normal process of ‘fixing’ the problem then nothing more is considered.

Great comment Jonathan, you have highlighted how extreme exercise is in fact very harmful, it is not natural for our body to be used and pushed to this extreme physical way to the point of complete exhaustion. The worst thing is we then celebrate this in our society. It is advertised as being healthy and important to exercise, to look and feel a certain way but all done without connecting to our body. Exercise is very important and supports our body but if it’s done with any drive push or competitiveness, than it certainly is running off an energy that is extremely harming. Like you said, the same energy that feeds a war.

This is so true Jonathan. The way or the energy in which sport and exercise is approached is often to conquer, with which we are essentially choosing to harm, be it ourselves or another. This is not who we are. And the more we become aware of how our bodies are feeling the more we can make choices that honor our bodies and our connection to it.

Great point Jonathan. Exercise can be extreme and many atheletes have very unnatural bodies yet they are hailed as Gods. The comments made by Julie Matson are very true. We pretend the Olympics and other sporting matches are about unity between countries and how great it is that we all come together. But there is no unity. We are fighting each other in a socially acceptable way. It is separative and is not about unity.

Thank you for sharing your experience with exercise addiction as I am sure there are many who use exercise as a drug to not feel parts of their life or themselves. The program that you have been given through Universal Medicine practitioners, tailor made for you, feels deeply loving and has clearly supported you to heal what you had previously chosen and learn to use exercise in a way that keeps you connected and in honour of what you feel.

Thank you for sharing anon how we can use even seemingly ‘healthy’ things, in this instance exercise, in such a way as to numb ourselves, to numb our awareness and feelings. Thank goodness for Universal medicine showing us that there is another way, that it is possible to feel and deal with what we are feeling without the need to suppress it.

Just like most other activities, we can use them to connect more deeply to our body and being or we can abuse them as a coping mechanism or relief from feeling other areas in our lives that may not be going so great.

What you have revealed Anonymous is a real gem, thank you for your honesty. I have to be careful when I read something like this to see myself doing “the addiction” in a lesser way so therefore it is “less than an actual addiction”, how convenient is this. I also, have now learned to exercise gently in a way that is in harmony and self-care for my body.

“Something I was able to connect to throughout this process was that if I rested as soon as I felt the feeling of tiredness come on, the feeling of depression and negative thoughts would dissipate.” Dear Anonymous, I love this sentence your honesty and clarity. I have found in my life the moment I register the feeling of tiredness in my daily life, my marker is, if and when possible to rest no matter what time of the day it is, always gives me the opportunity to re-connect back to self and then off I go again taking myself with me.

A great sharing Anonymous, its great to know about exercise and the beliefs we all hold around it, which is quite the opposite to what we all have accepted as so. I too was quite addicted to exercise in my teen and into my early twenties and used it to numb and distract me from not looking at my relationship with my partner and with myself within that. Knowing that there is a way to exercise that keeps you connected to your body and what it is telling you feels so supportive and nurturing , and also doing exercises that compliment your work makes a lot of sense.

I thought I was doing well by not using alcohol and I thought I was okay because what I was doing was contributing to my health and fitness so that I could better cope with life. However, it had an insidious effect on me, and my relationships: nothing was being dealt with, instead only being further buried. – We can use anything to escape, even “healthy activities” and it is so easy to justify that this is better than something else considered more harmful.

You made me realise Anonymous, that we can use exercise to numb our natural way of being tender and sensitive in such ways that we even can come to a point of adrenal exhaustion while being in the illusion that doing regular exercise would provide us with a healthy life. You make me aware of the fact that exercising is a good thing to do but that we have to approach this from the body and not from any construct of the mind. As our body knows what it needs, and I know that my body loves to be physical active, but also that it also knows when to rest and allow for a nap or so.

Anonymous you have such insight into yourself and the role exercise played in your life. What you have shared reminds me very much of my relationship with exercise. I came to realise that it wasn’t so much that the exercise made me feel better, it was more accurate to say that the exercise momentarily stopped me from feeling the anger, frustration and emptiness that I lived with constantly. In a way strenuous exercise is more harmful than drugs because at least with drugs you know they’re no good for you.

It is amazing how we live in disregard of our bodies, thinking we are living healthily but not truly appreciating our body’s needs. It can take a lot but eventually breaks down as a result of the hard treatment we mete out to it. Living gently, exercising gently, feeding it nourishing foods it becomes less of an ‘it’ and instead our most trusted friend and wise advisor.

“I realised that I was using exercise as a drug to run away from myself” – wow Anonymous this line, or more realisation is so powerful and honest. When i look back on the exercise routines i used to do whilst at university, it was similar – puffing up on endorphins from aerobics classes to not feel, and as a reward to combat feeling (and dealing with) the hollowness or void about myself, my situation, life itself. You highlight the importance of intention and motivation behind anything we do or choose, to reveal that all is not what it seems when we stop ourselves from feeling-clearly.

It is so easy for exercise to become something other than the natural support it should be if we are not aware of the possibility for it to do so and even when we do. When I was starting go to the gym again a little over a year ago it was with intention of keeping fit for my daily life however after 6 months my exercise routine had grown, weights were heavier and I was thinking more and more about my body image and bringing greater gains. My food choices began to reflect the needs of the exercise as it began to dominate my body and had begun to infiltrate all other areas of my daily choices. I was doing all of this in ignorance of what I really knew were the reasons for doing so and against the feeling I had that it was not truly serving me. It has been a six month total break and I have begun to exercise again – at home only initially apart from walking and cycling to work and then very recently returning to the gym with a carefully planned routine to only be truly supportive to me.

Its funny – without the understanding you get from the outcome of your behaviour (ie the adrenal exhaustion), you could read the opening paragraphs thinking here is someone who is really committed to their health! It could be put on a blog as something we aspire to, a daily programme of exercise.
How wrong that proved to be – and its only by scratching beneath the surface to see the why of a behaviour that we get to see what is truly going on. If we don’t, and we carry on for a few years burying what we are really feeling, then what we are burying comes out sideways and its a devil of a job to connect the original cause, rather than just treat the symptom.

“I realised that I was using exercise as a drug to run away from myself.” This line pretty much sums up your blog Anonymous, but then don’t we all have our own ‘drug’ to run away from ourselves, whether that be, exercise, films/computer games, or to bury ourselves in books…. sugar, and all comfort food was what I used so as not to feel the emptiness within. I conquered my addiction to sugar and today I am sugar free, and my body loves me for it.

What you share Anonymous also highlights the fact (I feel) how so easy it is to close down the hatch on communication with others, more often or not it is the family closest to us we stop expressing too, sharing exactly how we feel, when life gets tough. Finding other pursuits to bury ourselves in to rekindle what we feel is missing in our lives. I can so relate to when exhaustion sets in and negative thought processors take over when ‘the fix’ we seek starts to loose its grip/power and the body again shares its message clearly with us that all is not well. Thank Heaven for Universal Medicine/Serge Benhayon and the amazing healing modalities and the many practitioners for their amazing support that works so well alongside the guidance and advice from our own general practitioners. Thank you for this sharing Anonymous.

Thank you or sharing your experience it is precious to communicate. So often the opposite of obesity and a sedentary lifestyle is pushed as favourable. However it some ways it is no different, the outcome is the same we harm our body.

Amazing how even exercise – something that can potentially be incredibly supportive for the body – can be made into a way to escape our hurts, and try to fill the emptiness inside. It’s awesome you had the willingness to see that this was harming your body, rather than benefitting your health!

In society today you live a healthy life when you are going to the gym, train your body hard and jogg every day. People really believe they are doing something for their health – it is a great set up to not look deeper why they are exercising this way. Almost the whole world does it like that ” what should be wrong with that” ?! I used to be a sports fanatic and I can tell out of my experience, that I definitely did sports out of an emptiness. I wanted to have control over my body, have the shape I idealized, didn´t want to feel lonely and in general didn´t want to feel what was going on in my life.

Great point Susie having a willingness to look at our behaviours and their effects on our health is such a great place to start, from here it is possible to begin to question our motives and see if they are truly supportive and loving or not.

Susie I feel that what you have said ‘Amazing how even exercise – something that can potentially be incredibly supportive for the body – can be made into a way to escape our hurts, and try to fill the emptiness inside’ can be related to so much…food, music, relationships, work……………

“I thought I was doing well by not using alcohol and I thought I was okay because what I was doing was contributing to my health and fitness so that I could better cope with life.” Definitely a very relatable logic anonymous! Great example of the choices we make, when we are in fact ill but find ways to manage what is going on in our bodies. We find coping strategies that can be classed as healthy, and because they are classed in this way, we are able to convince ourselves we’re doing OK. But the next crash is only just around the corner, the body never gives up on showing us the disharmony we are living.

What an amazingly supportive blog Anonymous. I can relate very much to being addicted to exercise – through it I felt I earnt my worth. A friend joked that every time I went for a mammoth walk I would be exorcising my demons – but far from it I was inadvertently feeding them by ignoring them and letting issues grow.

So your words, ‘ I began to understand the importance of being aware of how I was feeling and the draining effect of giving my power away to anything or anyone,’ are a timely reminder to continue to notice what my body is communicating to me and to take heed. I know I often give my power away to avoid the conflict I imagine in saying no. I am learning to say no and stay with myself so if any reaction does come my way doesn’t actually impact. And in staying with myself I am feeling my worth without any need to exercise to earn it in my head.

This a great sharing and lesson for us to reflect on. We can keep pushing ourselves and not understand what is truly going on. I too had lack of self worth issues and for so long I just kept pushing myself to work long days and multiple jobs, my body was very exhausted when i came to the work of Universal Medicine. Through their support I was able to understand the drive behind this behaviour and as I started to honour myself and my body, the exhaustion started to fade

Something I too am still learning for myself Amita. It can be so easy to be caught up in the drive to get things done that we forget to look after our most important asset – ourselves and our wellbeing.

This is a very powerful story and it highlights the importance of looking at the way we exercise and what we are using the exercise to achieve. I know from my own experience it feels far better to exercise to feel more connection with my body than it does to exercise to get fit. Both are attainable but I have also found that I have used exercise to cover up an emptiness and that ultimately this will never work. A great sharing thank you.

I concur Stephen. In fact, the more I have deepened my relationship with my body and what it truly needs in regards to exercise the more I realise that all of the times in the past where I may have thought I was exercising for the good of my body and my health, I was actually causing great harm to my body and overdoing what it truly needed. I used to for example, go for a run regularly and ‘thought’ it was benefiting me when instead it was causing great harm and actually exhausting me before i even started my day.

Like you Anonymous, I feel I would not have truly begun the healing process without the love and support of Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine Esoteric Practitioners. My drug was alcohol and I used it to numb in just the same way as you used exercise. Although I was no longer using alcohol to the same extent when I found Universal Medicine, I still needed the clarity of love and truth that allowed me to feel the patterns of behaviour that had kept me rigid and controlled for so long. Bringing gentle exercise and walking has all been part of the process and from being very averse to exercise I now fully appreciate how different my body feels when I open it up to the joyful flow that I feel in my body when I connect to it in this way.

I have been addicted to the gym and also yoga for some time. If I did not exercise a day or at least do something, I would get really anxious and this empty feeling would come up. I really needed my yoga so I did not have to feel how much anxiousness there was in my body. There was always a push, a drive and there were days that I forced myself to the gym or yoga. This also had to do with the fact that I did not accept my body and I always wanted to be fitter and slimmer. Exercising can be very addictive and a way to escape from being with ourselves and dealing with our hurts.

I was addicted to exercise as well- whenever I wasn´t exercising I had the feeling I would get fat and I really checked and controlled what I ate in order to have the body I wanted. Since many years I don´t live and exercise like that and interestingly my body feels more in a natural shape than anytime before. And I am smaller and more womanly than ever before.

Exercise is such a tricky addiction to see because exercise is also such an important part of our wellbeing. But, there are very clear indicators when someone is using sport and exercise as an escape or coping mechanism. The escape route is very difficult to hide once you know what you are looking for.

I agree Lucy – to many people calling it out as an addiction would seem preposterous but as with anything, if done to excess, it causes a huge amount of strain and stress on the body. Yes we need to exercise, but our bodies respond far better and with long lasting wellbeing if the exercise we do is in respect of where the body is that day. Sometimes we can do more intense exercise but then others, just gentle movements are what will support most.

It can be quite a tricky addiction Lucy, I grew up doing a lot of sport and intense training and find it very easy to slip into that old way of exercising – going hard and pushing myself – either when I am a bit distracted or feeling a bit off and looking for something to “pick me up”.

Excercise was taught to me as something that was hard and requires effort. I never enjoyed excercise until I started to walk for myself, and i discovered how amazing it is to comitt to a daily loving walking routine, because it is very supportive of my body and I have become so much more energised throughout my day.

Absolutely agree Harrison, I have found regular walks an essential part of my routine – not only does it support my body physically, but I love the opportunity to get outside and connect with nature and spend some quality time with myself.

And the icing on the cake is having the opportunity to connect with people in my neighbourhood – it may just be a shared smile and a nod, or stopping for a longer chat…developing these connections is just as enriching as the walk itself.

Harrison, this is something I am starting to learn. If I do exercise as a commitment to me it feels so completely different to the feeling of ‘I should do’ or ‘I have to’. Instead it feels empowering and lovely.

Almost no one in our days wants to admit that a seemingly ‘fit’ person can have a chronic exhaustion and acompagnied by depression. This is the big ‘hook’ here. Of course we need to have a certain fitness, which I would call ‘vitality’ in our bodies and depending on our daily work activity, it needs to be supported. But pushing your body through exercises with pain and manic behavior is not the way. Especially not if we use it as an escape for something we do not want to feel – sadness, emptiness, frustration etc.

Dear Sonja that is true what you wrote in your comment: “Almost no one in our days wants to admit that a seemingly ‘fit’ person can have a chronic exhaustion and acompagnied by depression.” It shows exactly how our world is – not really loving. Therefore it is easier to push ourselves beyond what is possible otherwise we have to feel this lovelessness in every step we do – this is the real pain – and we choose to not feel or to deal with it. Instead it seems to be easier to distract and to push oneself.

Dear Anonymous, I like the passage where you describe when you get a sense of fatigue, you immediately rest and feel – so any negative thoughts or depression disappear. This is resting and feeling I started recently and appreciating my body with that is an enormous leap – in opposite to the one I used to: push through and eat.

Johanne very true, what I get from this is that anything can be an addiction, its not what we do but how we do it. For me I was never committed to exercise yet I am constantly inspired each time I exercise with connection and the difference that brings to my day.

It makes such a big difference if we exercise in connection to us or not. In the past, the coach told me, do 10 repetitions of exercise 1, then 10 repetitions of exercise 2, and so on. In my head I was counting 1, 2, 3, 4, … At this time I couldn’t really feel my body – I just did, what somebody told me without feeling my body and my natural rhythm. Today it is completely different – my body is telling me, how many times he wants to do something, which move my body wants to do next, etc. My body leads, I just have to listen.

Hi Anonymous, what a great, honest blog. We can use anything to numb or distract ourselves even so called ‘good’ or healthy things but what I hear reading your blog and know from my own living experiments, anything done without true connection to the body can lead to abuse of the body and can be used as a way to avoid ourselves and what we may need to deal with – I’ve not used exercise in the way you describe, for me it’s been about going into stress and busyness as a way to avoid myself. I’ve learned that it doesn’t work and I need to feel what is there and address it. No matter how we try and how far we go, we always come back to us and our bodies, and that’s such a beautiful thing, it’s like a tether we have that keeps us honest and real, and I’m learning to love and appreciate that more. I am so thankful for the honesty of my body.

I find it amazing that in our mind we can view how we are exercising as being good for us as it’s getting us ‘fit and healthy’, and yet in the process we completely override what the body is truly communicating to such an extent that (as in this case) a diagnosis of adrenal exhaustion and depression is the result.

It is so easy to become addicted to something that offers a solution of relief to our problem, without actually dealing with them. Sugar, exercise, alcohol, drugs etc etc, all allow us borrowed time where we don’t have to face that which is hurting or making us feel not right.

Borrowing time is what they think they do when running and spinning crazy, but it does not work and that is very obvious, the rates of illness and diseases are talking for themselves. There is no recipe to escape. And Sport is a tricky way to even think that they have done something good, what is even worse when sport is used in the wrong way to numb down emotions and reactions.

Wow! What an amazing insight into the addition of exercise. Your blog really highlights for me that anything can be used as an addition, be it food, entertainment, sex, emotional drama, exercise, work, and the list goes on and on. It all boils down to the intention behind why we choose to do certain things and most important of all the energy behind every intention, act or expression. The reason for our additions are to avoid feeling the emptiness, to bury what brings this up and pretend that everything is fine until we run ourselves and or others to the ground or choose to heal. From healing we no longer are controlled by these additions, when we get to the source of the hurt, pain and emptiness the additions simply falls away.

Its amazing how the very things we convince ourselves as being good – are often the exact opposite. Also on reading this I really noted that much of what goes on in the world espouses the same pictures we hold as ideal compounding our dependence on the very things which keep the truth and real healing at bay.

I think you have raised a really important topic that we need to look at because if something is deemed ‘healthy’ we don’t really question it even though you can feel there is something not quite right with it. An honest sharing like this is very needed. At the moment I am seeing a lot of younger men and women push their bodies and have this same drive that you speak about, it concerns me as to where this might end up as it is going to quite extreme levels.

Having had a break from exercise for many years, I now have exercise as part of my self-loving rhythm. When I go to the gym, I use the opportunity to deeply connect with my body and feel what to do. My mind sometimes kicks in and wants to something different to what my body is sharing with me and I have to be super careful to pause and truly listen. The the way I exercise is also very important. I start off very gently feeling every muscle that I engage, I feel the quality of my breath and keep checking in moving my attention from feeling my body, to my breath. I focus on keeping my mind with my body throughout the session. If for instance I am doing a set of weights, I don’t count how many to do, I wait and listen to when my body says that’s it. And this will be different everyday. Exercise when done in connection is an extremely powerful healing tool.

Thank you for a vey powerful insight into how addictions run us – even under the banner of ‘doing good’. No good comes of over riding how we actually are and what it is we truly need to address in our lives. This is a wonderful awareness to support coming back to ourselves first: “Something I was able to connect to throughout this process was that if I rested as soon as I felt the feeling of tiredness come on, the feeling of depression and negative thoughts would dissipate.”

“ The moment I feel any fatigue is an indication for me to stop. Something I was able to connect to throughout this process was that if I rested as soon as I felt the feeling of tiredness come on, the feeling of depression and negative thoughts would dissipate.” This is a key point I feel for anyone who has experienced depression as there appears to be a link or connection between depression and exhaustion, and honoring ones body when it needs rest, prevents the negative cycle of thoughts that can come when we try to push on through with a task or work.

This is great and very true, there is indeed a link between depression and exhaustion. The way out of the depression cycle is to be in connection with our bodies in conscious presence and self care as well self loving choices, that are not hard onto the body.

I can so relate to what you said in your blog about the emptiness and pain you felt inside, that nothing could fill, until I came across Serge Benhayon, I had tried everything under the sun to fill this void inside always looking outside of myself, as I connect more and more with the gentle tender man I am I feel I’m filling up with more love from the inside outwards.

Thanks Anonymous. I’m sitting here feeling my own exhaustion and whilst a ‘lack’ of exercise is a contributing factor for me, taking on other peoples emotions and energy is probably my biggest addiction, it leaves me feeling completely drained. Also creating worry for myself is a sure fire way to keep me feeling depleted.
No matter what the addiction, it will always exhaust us, until we choose to deal with whatever it is we are covering up.

I love how you share that although you used exercise as a ‘drug’ you have managed to turn it around and use it as the loving support that it can be for your body. We are able to use food, medication, work and exercise to support us or to numb us. Our intention is the key.

Exercise and our relationship to it is one of those areas in life that can tend to get dismissed for how we’re using it, or abusing it. As, to exercise falls in the ‘good for us’ category, as long as you’re doing it, the box is being ticked. So what is so often overlooked is our relationship to it.

Well said Giselle. Our relationship to exercise is often overlooked. Yet when we choose deepen our awareness to this we have the opportunity to deepen our relationship with exercise to truly support us and our bodies.

Yes I found the same and am now really listening to my body and enjoying going to the gym and having personal training sessions as well, as all is catered to how the body feels and that there is gentleness in all I now do.

I can so relate to your blog Anon. At a stage in my life I gave up drugs and alcohol and took up exercising 2- 3 hours a day. I could not go a day with out exercising, my day revolved around it and I thought I was going well because I was no longer taking drugs. But and a big BUT, because I did not deal with the underlying reason as to why I took the drugs in the first place I substituted drugs for exercise and I was no better off. In fact I was worse off because at least when I was taking drugs I knew I had a problem but when I was exercising I was under the illusion that I was going really well. Not true, because 12 mths later I went back to drugs and this oscillated for the next ten years never healing until I came to Universal Medicine and connected with the true me. I then no longer needed something outside of my self to try and make me feel better and to avoid the emptiness I felt inside.

Thanks for sharing your story here. I recently attended an eating disorders talk and was amazed at how often the eating disorders go hand in hand to an addiction to exercise. I went along because I have friends with eating disorders so I wanted to have a better understanding but by the end of one of the talks I realised that I do kind of have an eating disorder as in many ways I am very controlling in regards to the way I eat and I think about food a lot.
I can see that with exercise it would be very similar. It would be easy to get so addicted to it that the exercise starts to control your life as you have shared here. Amazing that your whole routine or weekend outings depended on the exercise classes. This can be the same with someone with an eating disorder, the whole day is planned about when and what they will eat. So much control but really it is all out of control.

While I didn’t get to the stage of being diagnosed with exhaustion or depression, I can very much relate to using exercise as a way to escape life or to fill a need I wasn’t otherwise getting met. My period of full on exercise was a period of adrenal highs where I pushed my body no matter how I felt and where I was engulfed in guilt when I missed or cut a session short. As I look back now, I can feel that what I was seeking was something to fill the gap for the lack of intimacy in my relationship with my partner and my low self worth, but no matter how much I exercised, the emptiness was still there. It was only when I was introduced to the teachings of Universal Medicine that I realised that filling my emptiness could only ever come from me and never from anything outside. The key for me in this whole process has been to develop a loving and caring relationship with myself, and then using gentle exercise to support that connection, not makeup for it.

“The emptiness that I felt was such a deep pain inside. I didn’t know what it was and I just wanted to get rid of it. It was a bottomless pit that nothing could fill – not food, my husband, children, friends, movies, travel or any other distraction that I tried. And as it turned out not even exercise; however, it kept the uncomfortable feelings I was having at bay, just like a ‘drug’.” These sorts of self observations are incredibly healing for everyone who’s experienced the same sort of behaviours to read. Emptiness that cannot be filled is one of the worst feelings a human can experience.

Having been through Adrenal fatigue myself, I understand the importance of starting to listen closely and sensitively to what it’s saying to you: “The moment I feel any fatigue is an indication for me to stop. Something I was able to connect to throughout this process was that if I rested as soon as I felt the feeling of tiredness come on, the feeling of depression and negative thoughts would dissipate.

How awesome Anonymous that you have nailed this massive distraction of exercising which was only keeping you further and further away from yourself. An addiction no matter how dressed up it may be in words such as ‘exercise’, indeed they all have the same purpose and that is to keep us disconnected and not living from the reality of our body. It’s really inspiring to read how you have turned your exercise addiction around and how we can truly support our bodies with less rigorous exercise regimes.

“if I rested as soon as I felt the feeling of tiredness come on, the feeling of depression and negative thoughts would dissipate.” This is an interesting observation. The rates of exhaustion and depression continue to rise and it suggests that if people stopped to feel the exhaustion and not just push through that this may alleviate the subsequent symptoms of depression.

Sometimes we need a big HELLO from our body, because we unfortunately don´t listen to the signs beforehand. I needed to have 2 slipped discs before I started listening to how I live and from what energy I work from. It is the best marker now in my life, although I have as a result that I am weaker in power of my arms now.

I saw an old lady in my gym the other day, being forced to do a deep lunge while grimacing and almost pleading it didn’t feel safe. Her ‘expert’ personal trainer, a young, hard woman, dug her heals in and insisted. It was a horrible stand off based on “I know best what’s good for you”, as opposed to “hey if your body is telling you it isn’t safe, lets move on”. It was dismaying how this woman probably approaching 70 (albeit a very fit looking 70) did not offer her body the authority to say ‘no’ and how vanity was definitely playing a role.

I do also observe people in the gym who are doing the spinning classes, even women talking like men in ruff and tuff conversations – pushing to the limits and over, many are using this kind of sport to speed away from life, this is how it feels to me. This is crazy and sad.

This is a great blog and turn around of how you approach your life and exercise. I too took exercise to an addictive level severely burning out my adrenals. Really listening and honouring what our bodies lovingly communicate is key in everything.

Anonymous, you are really exposing here how many distractions there are available for us to think we are ‘making our life better and healthier’, but in fact are just running away from facing what needs to be faced and dealt with. Hard exercise being one of them.
” I’d go back to using exercise to make myself feel better and to prevent me from getting to the point of feeling the absolute devastation of the lack of communication and intimacy within my marriage”.

This blog is a clear example of how pretty much anything can be used as a ‘drug’ to distract us from the pain of the emptiness the vast majority of us carry around. Thank you for sharing your experience Anonymous.

You have exposed two things here. That exercise can be an addiction (so an addiction is not necessarily something that is seen as ‘unhealthy’ but the manner in which it is being done and that it is being used in order not to feel). Also even though we are in the 21st century and strive to create faster, better, lighter technology we are still not taught and do not know how do heal hurts, re-connect to ourselves or have relationships that are true! This is HUGE! It exposes the complete lack of ‘intelligence’ and wisdom we are living. I am continuously inspired by Serge Benhayon and Universal Medicine who address all of this and reflect another way to live.

Hi Anonymous, your blog feels to be so relevant in the seemingly current fervour of abusing the body through punishing exercise regimes. We have parks and pathways that are constantly pounded by grim faced runners, and boot camp type structured exercise classes that we can view from our apartment and my heart feelings of compassion goes out to the hurting child within each one of them.
One can only imagine the pain they are all endeavouring to numb through such determination not to listen to their bodies. Congratulations to you for ultimately listening to your body, and thank you for sharing your experience.

Extraordinary expose on the truth about extreme exercise. I can very much relate to this blog, being a former exercise nut myself. I was for many years what one would consider to be super fit. There is a thing in the sporting industry called the Beep Test. You run between two markers, in rhythm to a beep that signifies when you need to reach the end each time. The beep gets progressively faster each stage. I regularly used to top the test for my hockey team, and my results where not far off the same category as international boxers and olympic athletes. But was I healthy? Hell no. I regularly got bronchitis and the flue, at least twice a year. I was always exhausted. But before Universal Medicine you could not have convinced my that my lifestyle was not healthy or true. I was not overweight. I was fit. I was perfectly normal, and some. But that was before I met someone who showed me a different level of vitality, who inspired me to realise that I was not enjoying life as I thought, but was consumed by life – and it was spitting me out. Life can be so simple. Life can be a blessing. But to know love at this level, we need to love ourselves first, and producing a body that can run 3 and a half minute kilometres over a 6km run, or that can run 4km in 12 minutes is not loving- it is first rate abuse. Of course, if we do not have an inkling of our own love, then how would we know? And therein lies the beauty about meeting someone like Serge Benhayon. Suddenly all the parameters for what is acceptable in life change.

Well said Adam – “And therein lies the beauty about meeting someone like Serge Benhayon. Suddenly all the parameters for what is acceptable in life change.” Meeting Serge Benhayon has changed everything for me too, because the idea of a successful life has been superseded by an embodied experience of true love and joy.

Yes Janet “the idea of a successful life has been superseded by an embodied experience of true love and joy” So beautifully summed up. More and more ‘outer’ things just seem to fall away and a deeper appreciation of what lies ‘within’.

It is amazing Adam, we introduce love into our lives, as so simply yet grandly presented by Serge Benhayon, and the parameters for what is acceptable in life certainly do change. Going from a mind-set that tells us what where doing is healthy to actually questioning every last detail in our lives is an extraordinary turn around for most if not all of us. And rewarding beyond words.

I agree Adam, we have learnt to champion the exterior look of how we look and think that being healthy is being trim, cut and hard but the reality is very different as most often there is such an abuse being done to the body in order to look a certain way. Thank goodness to Serge Benhayon who has shown us that to be fit and healthy starts from within and then we support our bodies with gentle exercise that honours the body for who we are.

At work one of my colleagues always comes to show me her latest martial arts trophy. I always reply with the same thing, which is to ask her at what cost, did the medal come with in terms of the injuries she sustained. It is really amazing the things that we consider “healthy”.

My one senior a grade club premiership trophy for hockey and one national championship in the same sport cost me two damaged knees, a damaged shoulder, a broken collar bone, three disclocated fingers, a wonky back, heel spurs, numerous rolled ankles, three broken teeth, permanent scarring on both knees and the backs of my hands, a broken nose, calcification lumps on my shins, not to mention numerous soft tissue injuries, the extent of which I cannot remember. The feeling of glory in both instances lasted all of one night, and the next day I was left feeling depleted and empty, longing for more.

Thank you anonymous, so many parts of what you have shared jumped out at me, one in particular was when you noticed ‘..that if I rested as soon as I felt the feeling of tiredness come on, the feeling of depression and negative thoughts would dissipate.’ – it’s no surprise really that when we push through, push against what our body is feeling, that we then find a heaviness in our body or negative thoughts appearing.

Anonymous this is such a powerful blog as it reveals how much we try to fill ourselves from the outside in, rather than truly seeing our own worth. In your case it was exercise but it can and does take many forms. When we stop and feel, truly feel the intent behind why we choose the things we do that it is often because there is something within we want to fulfil. We feel empty or somehow lacking. So often our choices come at the expense of our body and it is not until we are given a stop point through illness or disease that we truly begin to see, as you have, that there is more to feel. Only then can we begin to stop these momentums and start to connect back to who we truly are. A beautiful loving person who is and always was enough as they are.

Thank you for this amazing blog, that shows so clearly that it is time to look at our definition of the words ‘fit’ and ‘fitness’. Obviously we miss certain aspects that are vitally important. How can we call ourselves fit if we are exhausted and constantly searching for something to numb what we are truly feeling – even if that is sports.

You raise an interesting point about how exercise classes have seemed to become more frenetic in recent years. No longer does it seem to be enough to exercise within our limits, everyone is being encouraged to push our boundaries and fight through the pain for the result. I find this has created a much more negative association with exercise, where we are taught to convince ourselves there is fun to be had in the pain. Yet my more recent experience of exercise echoes what you said, less is often so much more in that I can feel and enjoy my boy move when I focus on light and playful movement.

To fight through the pain and to be hard on self is very unsexy. Men are very sensitive underneath and so are women who pretend to be tuff and as hard as men. It just does not work and has never been healthy to the body. It is all show and false images showing good looking people in the magazines. It does not work for me any more, and I am very graceful to myself that I have stopped hiding myself behind an image that was not true.

A lot of the time, doing lots of exercise can cause so much exhaustion that you turn to surgery carbohydrate food, which you then use exercise to burn off or as an excuse as to why you can eat them – to becomes a cycle.

After reading this blog, the other day Anonymous I went swimming at the gym. Afterwards wow – my body felt so sore. Your words here have helped me realise that I have been using this way of exercise to bring in a numbing hardness, just as I used to use alcohol. Exercise with connection and gentleness is completely different is something we all deserve to enjoy.

Absolutely Joseph, ‘Exercise with connection and gentleness is completely different is something we all deserve to enjoy.’ I can feel how if we exercise gently then it is enjoyable, whereas pounding our bodies and pushing them is hard, like an endurance test, rather than being fun and joyful.

I so agree. There used to be particular exercises that I used to do in the gym and also with my trainer, and since I have really paid attention to my body now for quite some time, all these have changed. Having shared with my trainer as to how my exercises now have to change too has been a joy as he is very receptive and listens, and at times we have a laugh when he says ‘ok now we are gonna do this; – and I am saying, ‘we are doing no such thing’ and then share with him why. I love how he always then comes up with something that honours how I feel and what I share about how my body feels. Exercise in this way has become fun for me now.

Thank you Bernard – yes in the beginning it took me a bit to get my courage up however after I did for the first time, and seeing and feeling the receptiveness of my trainer, it became so easy and now we have a lovely work out with heaps of smiles and laughs, and my body feels refreshed at the end

I couldn’t agree with you more Joseph and Rebecca, ‘Exercise with connection and gentleness is completely different and is something we all deserve to enjoy.”
I no longer exercise until my body is aching and exhaustion sets in- it was a way to escape what my body was feeling and with it the belief that I was getting fit. Nowadays,I choose to go for a gentle walk daily or do exercises according to how my body feels and I feel energised and more spacious in the end.

You have delivered so many great realisations that go against what we think is healthy in this blog. But the thing that stood out was your honesty about how you felt being at home with the kids. I feel it is really common that women feel unhappy/unfulfilled (despite loving their kids) at home after working and this is a time when their lack of self-worth shows up.The more people who talk about this the more honest we can get about this topic that is known but rarely uncovered.

Thank you Anonymous. I can relate to what you have shared about exercising being like a drug that keeps at bay the emptiness that is there, that we do not want to feel. I believed that exercising be it running, swimming, gym or yoga, was keeping me fit and being fit was ‘good’. And the more it hurt meant the better it was. When in truth the more it hurt the more distracted I was from the truth. I had learnt how to over-ride and push my body which gave me a momentary high but was always left with an unresolved restlessness, and a times a sense of abuse. Until Universal Medicine I was not aware just how delicate my body is and how beautifully it responds to gentle exercise that actually supports and honors who we are in essence. And with choosing to develop a more loving and caring relationship with my body I have been able to be aware of and heal the restlessness that comes from my separation to my Love, to me.

Exercise is seen as healthy regardless of the impact on the body. I spent years at school pushing my body as hard as I could to win races or ‘to not let the team down’ without any. Care to the harm I was causing my body. I now take gentle walks and am learning to take life more gently and the feeling left in my body by doing this is exquisite.

Exercise and dieting can both be really insidious in the harm they do. For one can be seduced into believing one is being healthy and caring for oneself but they can both become an addiction and/or ways of distracting and numbing oneself from feeling hurts and uncomfortable unresolved issues. This may give short-term relief but in the long run lead to serious health conditions as you eloquently and honestly share and expose, Anonymous.

We can pretty much use and abuse anything if we so choose to. Depending on the way in which we choose to do it will determine the outcomes. Only a complete and true awareness, understanding and honesty will support a truly loving choice.

Yes Jenny Hayes I feel this is a good point. We have an expression in physiotherapy that anything that has an effect can cause harm if not used correctly. Through the teachings of Universal medicine and my learning about energy I now understand that how we do things, that is the energy behind them really determines whether they are harmful or healing, and that this is a choice.

Wow Jonathan what you raised in you comment is so true – people are so trapped in this “being healthy and caring for oneself” I was trapped in this believe as well. It took me a while to get a deeper understanding of loving myself and it also took my willingness to look at my unresolved issues to the best of my ability. I have to admit that all I did was worth it cause I am more healthier now.

Shows how much foundation our true connection to our body is.
How quick we can override our true feelings and build on this again and again till our wobbly house of cards falls down. Then we ask ‘why me’ and have to discover the choices and thoughts that brought us to this.

Yep, and it all comes down in the end to self-responsibility and acceptance of the choices made and the consequences that follow eventually. Delving into the thoughts that made us choose that which was not loving to the body are well worth exploring, and then beyond that, reaching for that lovely spark within to start choosing anew, honouring the body and all it tells will go a long way towards true foundation and connection to our selves.

This is true Susan. I have observed someone abuse themselves with over exercise to the point of needing a knee replacement because of the damage, and still wanted to get up and run with the new knee against doctors advice.

What you have shared here when you say
“I didn’t know how to deal with the difficulties I had in my relationships, or with my lack of self-worth. I would withdraw, become frustrated, tense or angry and I didn’t feel that it was okay to be feeling any of this. I felt frustrated that my relationship with my husband wasn’t working so I’d go back to using exercise to make myself feel better and to prevent me from getting to the point of feeling the absolute devastation of the lack of communication and intimacy within my marriage.”
Is what many people have experienced male or female, and alcohol is usually the go to drug to numb what is really going on in our lives.
It’s fascinating to me what we use to numb ourselves from feeling rather than communicating to each other how we are feeling. Through the support of Universal Medicine I am learning how to communicate in a way that expresses what I need to say without bringing the other person down or making them feel less in the process.

Before having children when I was training to get fit for trekking in the Himalayas I was addicted to exercise.
For 6 months prior to our trek I did 1-2 aerobic classes a day-5 days a week, rode a standing exercise bike if watching TV, and on the weekends did a 3-4 hr walk at 1000m. If I wasn’t exhausted at the end I believed I hadn’t trained hard enough. If I missed a day of exercise I felt agitated and anxious in my body.
I can see now how numbing and hardening in the body exercise can be, when you don’t connect to your body whilst doing it, and do the exercises in a gentle and honouring manner.

How ironic is that we become addicted to something that makes us better, faster, slimmer healthier… when it comes from our head and we do not listen to our body it will always find a way to get our attention… at times negating everything we have done.

The irony is actually ridiculous. We will pummel ourselves to look better, but not consider for example that drinking soft drinks is giving us a massive sugar and / or caffeine rush that is like a tsunami in our bodies.

These are very good practical tips for my daily life. Thank you! Since almost every member of our societies suffers exhaustion this is gold to find and read about! – This is not knowledge from some book, it is lived and proofed by you.

It took me a while to get around the fact that not all exercise is good for us, as I had this idea that you had to do something or you were lazy and out of control with your life and your body, and that you have failed. But in actual fact it wasn’t the exercise I didn’t like it was the way I was exercising, as if punishing my body and pushing it to do things it didn’t want to do – like walk up and down mountains, cycle across deserts and swim 40 lengths in my one hour lunch break (taking into accounts driving to the pool, swimming and then driving back). Back then it never entered my head that I was being abusive to myself, as I told myself I was being healthy. This to me shows the consciousness behind the whole exercise to get healthy myth and that there is not one ounce of self love in this way of thinking.

I am still working on understanding that I don’t need to push myself when I move my body for it to be beneficial. The way I exercise now is very loving, and feels incredible to do. I honestly feel sparkling afterwards, but I can see there are still some beliefs that I’m not really working hard enough! The beliefs we have of how the world is supposed to be can be deeply entrenched.

I have often seen people jogging after work and it looks like, as you have expressed, they are using it as an outlet for their day (frustration, anger, lack of self worth etc). They actually look in pain! We need to learn how to instead deal with our feelings, day and what is going on for us first and THEN exercise for us in a really loving way honouring our body.

Anonymous this is a very rich sharing. I can imagine the disbelief that people that exercise with the push and drive you talk about here have when they find themselves ill. For the push is out there to exercise, to keep healthy and to look good, so the shock must be huge when this doesn’t work. Role models like yourself are greatly needed, your wisdom in a gym could be life changing for many people.

Well anonymous, what you have shared here is paramount for everyone as we can use so many things in life to distract and numb ourselves away from feeling all that we may prefer to not feel. You have presented a really important key to life here as you mention surrendering. To surrender into ourselves and our bodies in times of stress, distress or any emotion for that matter is one of the most self-supportive choices we can make, to surrender is to stop and really listen to ourselves and our feelings and from this point we can make our next choice from a clarity and a precise point of view.

What an insight, I never thought that exercise could be used as another form of addiction, with the added illusion of deluding ourselves into thinking we are doing something good by pushing our body to extremes when in fact we are actually harming ourselves. If we don’t listen and override what we feel then of course the body will speak even louder until eventually we have to stop, as happened in your case anonymous. It is wonderful with the support of Universal Medicine you came to realise there is a far more caring way to exercise and which is still honouring of your body.

It’s very hard, telling someone that the exercise they are doing is harming their body, it doesn’t compute for them because they are listening from their minds and there is no feeling what the body might say and they don’t want to truly stop and feel what it would say, so prefer to go with the majority who says, good hard exercise never hurt anyone, it’s character building and good for the body to make it strong.

So true. The exercise consciousness is a very tough one to break as we are so conditioned to believe that analogy ‘no pain, no gain’ is good for us. It is many times, only when we are confronted with serious illness or disease do we stop to consider, such is the blessing of the body.

This is true Julie, I have family members that would say no pain no gain. This was the motto for getting up in the morning rain, hail or sine to push the body to pain to feel that they are doing enough.

This is a very powerful blog. So many in the world are pushing their bodies to the extreme, and exercising has become a favoured way to avoid and bury what is going on in our lives. So many times I have heard woman say they are at boot camp so they can get drunk at night and know they are burning off the calories. What a vicious cycle we can put the body into! The only way I have found to exercise that is true for my body is what I have learned through Universal Medicine practitioners. The quality my body is in when I exercise is super important and from their we can always gauge what is needed. Thank you for sharing your very important story.

Like so many things we have become to accept as the norm one that gets me every time is people saying they need to be drinking wine because it helps prevent cancer or that it keeps blood pressure down. How and where did we get so lost that we used one harmful substance to tackle another? Where did we stop going straight to the root cause and dealing head on with that? Until we are prepared to open our eyes and get honest, examples like this will continue to escalate.

I never would have thought that over exercise would be just another way to numb the body and give relief from feeling the emptiness, and that this could be addictive like a drug. I know well the feeling of emptiness, of denying myself, and the absurdity of the despondency that follows. Choosing to look at the dark side when there was so much to live for, all I can say is it pays to take the steps toward loving self and others like you have done Anonymous.

Good point Bernard, I too was completely unaware of why I was exercising in the way I chose to, I felt I was doing something great for my body as I did feel great afterwards, but in truth I felt great due to the heightened level of endorphins that dulled the deep feeling of emptiness I constantly struggled with.

So interesting how as humans we have the ability to warp pretty much anything from its true purpose and then tell ourselves that it is ‘real’ It wasn’t one of my thing exercise, but food was…”I used exercise to fill the void. It provided a high that encouraged me to go back to the gym to get my next fix.” The ‘void’ that many of us fear, can come in the night before bed, or when we finish work and sit in the evening wondering what to do next, or perhaps there is a sudden 10 minute of silence in the home and we suddenly feel very strange because we realise we cannot be still, or quiet and not ‘do’ anything and enjoy this 10 minutes being content ‘being’ ourselves. I used food and drink and relationships and TV etc to fill the void I felt when I took these things away. I had tricked myself that I was empty or lacking…and a felt a fear so attempted to fill it, and yet, by looking at why I acted out this lifestyle choices, and letting go of the reasons I did them did not expose a void but a beautiful person who has been waiting to shine bright and enjoy being still in a room for 10 minutes or any where else, just enjoying ‘being her…

Yes, Samantha, filling the void or emptiness is something that has caught most of us out at some point I would say, rather than stopping to feel what is really going on, and re-connecting to the amazing truth that lives inside us.

It is very supportive to just take a moment and connect a little deeper with ones body before exercise. It is the difference between exercising from one’s head and actually listening to one’s body and allowing it to choose the pace, intensity, flow, number of repetitions etc. All of this is the difference between enjoying exercise while you do it and only enjoying a short term high after it. When that high wears off you suffer the soreness that deters you from wanting to do it again anytime soon.

I was never into exercise as I never had the stamina, instead I had a drive and push in work. From young I worked hard, whether it be, a part time job and study, then university and job and then in the real world working for high profile company, even when I changed careers into health, I was still constantly pushing and doing. My body was over working, I had no understanding that my body was exhausted with the way I was living, even though I was tired and getting depressed. It was only through the teachings of Universal Medicine that I started to understand what I have been doing to my body and then I started to make self loving choices to support the change

It’s amazing Amita, isn’t it, how much we can run our bodies into the ground and have no seeming awareness that it is happening. The way our societies and workplaces are set up (generally speaking) do not encourage people to work in a way that truly supports their body. No wonder people are getting sick repetitively and companies are concerned re decreasing productivity levels. Understanding our bodies and their needs is vitally important – and these will be different for each person depending where they are on their trajectory of life. Supporting people to connect to their body, and understand where it is at, is vitally important.

Very true Amita, we can push through life the way we can push through exercise. Either way we are pushing and creating tension and hardness that leads to exhaustion. Taking the time to really feel what our bodies need and taking care to be gentle is such a different way to live and exercise which can support us in life rather than drain us.

I had a similar journey with ‘dancing’. Dancing was a dramatic act for me with the benefit of ‘feeling alive’. I thought I would express me – but it was more of trying to catch me somewhere in this action. And also I wanted recognition for my acting – even just for me in a mirror. But then I felt more and more of my emptiness, did become ill and I discontinued dancing for a while. I had to really get to know me and my body and with a growing awareness and connection, allow my body initiate to move again. It is a joy to feel.

Thank you for sharing your journey with your exercise addiction so honestly. It is amazing how many things that we can find to hide in rather than face what is really going on in our lives. Connecting to myself and taking responsibility for how I was feeling has been key for me in healing the deep seated exhaustion of constantly giving my power away and like you say learning to say ‘No’ was super important. From there we can build a more self loving way to be that supports us in our daily lives thanks to the practical presentations of Universal Medicine.

I can certainly relate to the feeling of ’emptiness’ driving behaviour that is completely dishonouring of my body. There was a time where I became very driven to lose weight, as I thought that if I did I would be happy – and be everything I had always wanted to be. It is now apparent that it did not do any such thing, but contributed further to the exhaustion I would have already been feeling by virtue of the way I was studying and working at the time. I too have rebuilt my relationship with exercise, and it is something I am enjoying doing more of, as I commit more to honouring and truly caring for my body. The way I am now with exercise is a far cry from how I was then, and the key difference is I now know I am worth honouring, and that exercise cannot be about ‘bettering’ myself or losing weight. I know I am already amazing, and exercise is a great way to support my body to continue living that every day.

It is how we exercise that needs to be redefined, just like many words such religion, wealth, relationship and love require redefining. Thanks to Serge Benhayon, the word medicine is breaking the mold and offering a complete all encompassing fresh approach. Exercise in its current consciousness is actually wearing us out and making us sick.

“Exercise in its current consciousness is actually wearing us out and making us sick.”
That is a bold statement Matthew Brown, that I completely agree with. And it shows how far away we have strayed from a healthy life-style, that the one thing almost everybody thinks is healthy is in most cases in fact detrimental to our health. It shows once again that it is not what we do but how we do what we do that makes all the difference.

Wow, a powerful and honest blog. Exercise was not the way for me and yet as I read on I realised that what you were using it for applies in any case – the numbing to not feel – I just did it differently, so great to visit that with honesty, thank you.

I can remember through most of my life needing to exercise as a fix for tension and stress I felt, little did I know that I was using it to bury feelings that would have been better faced and dealt with. It is now after becoming a student of Universal Medicine that I understand why that desire to exercise was so strong and how it can be a vice in much the same way as alcohol, or high achievement or sugar or anything else that we use to numb or distract us from our feelings. Exercise can be enjoyed but now it is with the aim of feeling my body and enjoying and appreciating the movement.

It is incredible the lengths that we will go to to fill the void of emptiness. Whether it is food, alcohol, drugs, relationships or exercise, there are countless and a myriad of ways that we can avoid feeling our hurts. Exericse is a sneaky one because it is easy for us to think that we are doing something healthy and good for ourselves, so people rarely question that exercise can be harming. But like anything we need to carefully explore the quality in which we do it which will determine if the action is either healing or harming.

Well said, Donna. We can turn anything into a distraction away from ourselves, or something to ‘fill the void’. Therefore it is up to us to develop an honest relationship with our bodies and know when this is occurring, which can make all the difference to the way we choose to live, as this blog clearly highlights.

It is amazing how insidious exercise can be when used to numb and distract. Because we are doing what it seen as a good thing we can get away with it for lifetimes. To stop this incredible momentum of drive is a feat in itself but with honesty of our bodies we can achieve this by listening intently to what our bodies are telling us or if we don’t we will come to a grinding halt with illness and/or disease anyway. A great sharing that many can learn from, thank you.

Life becomes so different when we consider it from an energetic point of view. Most people would say that exercise is good for you, which of course it is but only if done in consideration of your body and how it is feeling in any given moment.

This is so true, and so astounding. Until not so long ago I had no idea about energy or the way in which it is in everything that we do, we cannot escape from the fact that everything is energy. The implications of this are huge, something I feel should be taught at school, so that we all have at least a basic understanding.

I find it incredible to read how damaging exercise can be when it is promoted across the board as a major part of a healthy lifestyle. And so we can easily buy in to this way of thinking when there is a desire to ‘be healthy’. I suppose the real catch is the question about what is considered healthy. because if we have different markers for what true health is, then where is the truth in health?

It’s madness the lengths we go to, to avoid truly feeling what is going on. I found alcohol and drugs far more convenient than exercise as I was never big on exercise, unless it was getting fit for sport. That’s one of the reasons I enjoyed Esoteric Yoga so much as you barely have to move.

We live in a world where people get an applause and recognition when they are fully into sports. The other day a friend posted a photo of his daughter who is full on into gymnastics on a high level. Proudly he shares how she trains every day, how she restricts herself from eating, she does not do social things but just trains. We as adults are proud that she wins the silver medal but I was just thinking: to what expense of her body is she doing this? Many young girls don’t get their period anymore when they train like this and they force their small bodies into positions which are not natural. Why do we applause for this and give likes for this?

Thank you for this ‘Anonymous’. I got into exercise in a big way at one time in my life and it was a part of a bigger ‘self-improvement’ plan. I would swim most days, run on others, attend the gym too’. I also read as much self-help material as I could, attend a variety of workshops and courses to make me a better me. What I can see now though, is that it was all a way of burying what I felt inside and not really dealing with anything, by creating a new, better me, I was in fact rejecting who I truly am as ‘not good enough’. This rejection of myself was like the basic premise of my life and it was – and still is to a degree, what really needs to be addressed. Like you, my association with Universal Medicine has supported me to heal these old wounds and hurts and live more in the acceptance of myself rather than in rejection and for this I am truly grateful.

What I love about this blog is that it is a great equalizer. It dispels the myth that one addiction is worse than another because in truth they are all the same, irrespective of whatever substance or activity we are addicted to. It exposes the truth about addiction in that it is the inner misery we feel when we have disconnected from our divine nature.

Awesome Elizabeth- you have nailed it here in your comment, “…the truth about addiction in that it is the inner misery we feel when we have disconnected from our divine nature.” It is totally irrelevant what type of addiction it may be, as the intent is the same for all.

Awesome Elizabeth, what you have said here is gold. It levels the playing field in terms of any addiction being better or worse, they are all filling a void of emptiness, but it will never ever deal with or understand the emptiness

I heard many stories from participants or students of universal medicine courses and presentations who had some kind of a loud speech from the body to make them feel that something needed to be changed. Why is it that we first need the exhaustion, accident, overweight, depression, cancer etc. to make us realize how amazing we actually are? Have we come to an acceptance of the “normal” that we have to function – physically and mentally – first? If we want to lower cancer rates, digestion problems, any form of illness and disease – we need to start with the body – not how to make it function – but what it truly needs. And this will only work by feeling the truth of wisdom our body shares with us every second.

What an amazing sharing – thank you. I feel this can be applied to so many other areas in life where we use distraction and numbing in order to not feel how we are living does not truly support us. We are brilliant at coasting along, working hard, playing hard, planning our holidays, watch our tv shows, wine and dine, play sports (the list is endless!) Basically we can use just about everything to not be still. It’s like stillness should be avoided at any cost! This is how I used to be – I used to feel so restless in moments where I found I had nothing to do and so I would quickly go onto the next project or distraction to take away those feelings arising in me. I became an expert at avoiding any feelings or clues that were there alerting me to a deep discomfort and underlying sadness within me, and I actually fooled myself into believing that these feelings were not there as I focused on my next distraction of the moment. Thankfully, through attending Universal Medicine healing courses and my willingness to look at what I had been avoiding, I can now feel the total beauty of allowing the stillness within me to be felt and appreciated. Many of my old distractions are no longer needed and I love to nurture moments in my days that bring more opportunity to feel the loveliness of me.

Exercise is ‘sold’ to us in magazines as a way of looking after the body, but there’s never a discussion about how we exercise or with what energy we are using. So it becomes another ‘to do ‘ thing, and then competition comes in, and people compete against others, or if we’re exercising alone. we often try to beat our own times to prove we are getting fitter. This never made any sense to me, there seems a sense of personal achievement but at a expense of driving and pushing the body unhealthily to extremes. Exercising gently and regularly supports the body to stay healthy and is very enjoyable.

An awesome blog thank you. It was only whilst reading your blog I recalled how addicted to exercise I have also been in the past. I went through a stage for many years where I would run, I became so obsessed with this that I always had my running clothes in the car with me in case I was out too long and then I would just pull over and start running for miles. The running was me actually running away from myself and keeping myself very busy trying to fill this emptiness. Then I dropped running and did a very physical form of Yoga, but hey I was doing something much better for my body wasn’t I than the running? Another illusion I had and then I started getting addicted to Yoga and using this as an escape from life. It is beautiful how Universal Medicine presentations have supported hundreds if not thousands of people to re-connect to themselves in a true way where there is no need for addictions of any sort anymore.

‘It is beautiful how Universal Medicine presentations have supported hundreds if not thousands of people to re-connect to themselves in a true way where there is no need for addictions of any sort anymore.’ Yes, well said – there is no need for any sort of addiction. And I too can attest to the power of Universal Medicine’s presentations in assisting myself and many others to move out of their addictions.

It has been great to discover how exercise is actually a great way to reconnect to the body and confirm this feeling of presence, instead of using exercise to better oneself, improve a perceived body image or distract from unaddressed tension and issues. Approaching exercise this way, i can see how exercise really is true medicine for the body.

I love that too and I feel so appreciative of my trainer who has listened and accepted my different views on exercise, and we now enjoy fun sessions where I am in touch with my body and what it needs and likes and what not; and he will find another way to exercise something if I am saying ‘I won’t do that’, ‘my body doesn’t like it’. 🙂

Thank you Anonymous for sharing from your own experience how exercising as it is promoted these days can be very harming to our body and health. In my own sport history I know I was encouraged to push and go as far as I could, which in truth was always much further then my body could go without having to become hard and tense. Our view of what fitness is needs to change and our understudying of the body needs to expand from a pure functional level to include the quality of energy we are in.

One of the most important lessons I have learned from attending Universal Medicine courses is that every we move we make has a energetic quality to it. When we move his quality is emanated to the world around us and leaves an imprint. This energy then returns to us i therefor magnifying that quality in our bodies. So just imagine excessing from a lack of self worth, or a desire to numb, or frustration …every movement we make then magnifies that quality in our body. So how important is it then to first connect and feel the quality we are in before we start moving?

When we have abused our body in the past and done some damage, it is very healing to then start to look after it and finally honour what it has been screaming at us. To develop a new relationship with the body and live according to its needs rather than a mental discpline, is very joyful.

It is the standard in this current time to use exercise as a way to cope with life. If you look at most people going in and out of the gym, for example, day after day, you can see they do not look any more vital when they finish their work out, they look relieved. There is another way, and this writer is spot on, exercise is totally different when we first look after ourselves and care and respect our bodies until they say to us, lets go exercise, rather than something we force onto our bodies wanting the exercise high and the relief – relief from how we are living – not exercise to compliment how are living.

What you are writing here is so important as exercise is “untouchable” in our society, everybody promotes it, so to question it is like criticising a God. But what if the quality we exercise in is not healthy for us at all as you have experienced? It is something we do need to consider deeply.

violence or other such abusive and often drug and alcohol-fuelled outbursts? While this isn’t necessarily related to personal, individual abuses of exercise it indicates there’s a certain consciousness at play behind the scenes of organised exercise that perhaps flavours the way we participate in exercise ourselves. There certainly seems to be a link between exercise, sport and addiction.

Yes – yet isn’t interesting how one by one all the different sports are being exposed as corrupt, be it financially or via doping and or domestic violence or other such abusive and often drug and alcohol-fuelled outbursts? While this isn’t necessarily related to personal, individual abuses of exercise it indicates there’s a certain consciousness at play behind the scenes of organised exercise that perhaps flavours the way we participate in exercise ourselves. There certainly seems to be a link between exercise, sport and addiction.

Very true Judith. It is not that there is anything wrong with exercise, as it is something that is very supportive and needed for our bodies. The conversations need to be around the quality with which we exercise in, and also our purpose and intent in the first place, as this intention sets the scene for that quality.

I have a long history of obsessive exercising, to the point of if I missed one day I would do twice as much the next day without fail. If I had not completed the specific time or amount then I would feel like a failure. I am learning a new way to exercise that is so much more gentle and honouring of the body.

Fantastic article Anonymous – it’s so important to be sharing personal stories such as this, to break down the illusion we’re all perfect. What you describe was definitely an addiction – it could have been drugs or alcohol you were describing yet it looked so good on the surface… but had such insidious and damaging effects. It’s helped expose something that would otherwise remain hidden due to its social acceptability.

Adrenal exhaustion is probably far more rife than we know. I’ve ended up with an adrenal exhaustion-caused thyroid condition, in my case initially fuelled by pushing my body to work for 6 or so years in an industry to which it was patently unsuited. Another form of addiction. I still struggle with over-work and my body will quite likely have to deal with the effects of it for the rest of my life. It’s great we’re talking about this and other forms of socially accepted self-abuse!

Victoria, you have named another insidious addiction: ‘over-working’.- a ‘ socially accepted form of self-abuse’. The term ‘workaholic’ shows that it is recognsed as an addiction but it’s often not caught in the early stages and even then it’s not until we get to the root cause of why we are needing to overcompensate that we can let go of the addiction. Universal Medicine Therapies provide great support with this.

Yes it’s so important as you say Victoria to be honest and share our revelations as we can all relate to the abuse we choose, whether it be over exercise, overworking, over use of medications prescribed or not. The abuse is endless but the results have the same damaging effects on the body and until we realise nothing happens by accident we are constantly choosing our broken leg or illness, a fact we are coming to terms with at this stage on our evolutionary path and by communicating our experiences do we reflect the messag

I recall going a bit mad with the gym in my 20s – there were definite addictive qualities there. I realised my addiction was fuelled by a lack of self-worth in the form of dislike of my body. It took me years, probably the best part of a decade, to get to point where I could return to exercise in a healthy way – in a way that was actually about my health rather than needing my body to look a certain way.

It just shows that the energy we do something in is very important. We can appear to be doing all the right things yet if we are putting pressure on one part of the body to get energy instead of being loving towards ourselves, we can really do some damage. Our bodies are very wise.

It is interesting how sport can be adopted as medication. We tend to associate medication with something that allows us to get better. Yet, as this example clearly shows, the regular use of something to avoid feeling where we are at brings illness and disease our way.

Emptiness is a bottomless pit and no matter what we do to try and fill this space, nothing is ever big enough. The more we try and fill it up, the more is needed. The consequences of this are devastating on public health. Many turn to smoking, drugs, alcohol or food, all of which have major health ramifications and cost to government.

That’s a fact Matthew, and the more we search the greater the depth of distraction we will be offered, until such time as we realise we are going around and around, till we get back to where we started and realise we had it all along and were only missing one vital ingredient… connection to ourselves first and the rest is already waiting to be claimed.

When I first took up running in my 20’s I was so addicted to it I started training for 1/2 marathons each year. I needed to run everyday to keep my level of fitness up, even pushing myself when I was really sick with the flu not stopping to rest my body. I would play very loud music and constantly feed myself thoughts to override whatever my body was truly feeling. Because if I listened to my body there was no way I would run – what a crazy way to live so disconnected to your body and abusing it in this way.

I agree Anna, its amazing to consider what we do to distract from feeling.
Now that I can more deeply feel my body its amazing to consider what I will do to keep feeling. Early nights, gentle exercise and supportive food are just a few things I find in my daily rhythm that support me to care for my body in a balanced way.

“With this addiction I would use exercise to numb and avoid the feelings of emptiness I had, to control emotions that would arise, and use it as a way of expunging any pent-up feelings”. It was in my twenties when I started to do excercise in order to not feel my emptiness. I had times where for example in summer I would go for a swim everyday and then in winter would walk a lot. Later in my thirties and fourties it changed to a mixture of swimming, walking everyday and going to the gym once a week. I would not say that it was excessive sports but I kept a level of excersise to feel ‘good’ in my body. When I was not able to excersice on a day for whatever reason I started to feel restless and might get grumpy. I did not like what I then felt in my body – the heavyness, emptiness, disconnection and also pent-up feelings. Doing excersise was the means to run away from this feeling and bury it in order to not feel it. It is very revealing to understand now that practising excercise in order to not feel what is there to be felt is an addiction, like others are addicted to coffee, cigaretts or any other kind of drug.

“…practising excercise in order to not feel what is there to be felt is an addiction” – that perfectly defines the falseness of misusing something potentially beneficial for our well-being and turn it into the very opposite.

“…practicing exercise in order to not feel what is there to be felt is an addiction…”. I didn’t want to admit in full that I have been addicted to exercise until I read this statement. It is so true that whenever we become attached to something giving our power to it and it becomes our main focus, it is an addiction. We create it as a distraction because we simply don’t want to feel.

This blog shows how an addiction to something that is supposed to be good for us is just as detrimental as an obvious one such as alcohol addiction. In some ways it is worse because we do not recognize it as an addiction until we become so depleted that we can’t function. Universal Medicine has supported many people to listen to their body so they can recognize the early signs of exhaustion before the body comes to a stop.

We are living in the ignorance of the fact that exercise to numb the body is abusive and I agree Sandra that the addiction to exercise is much worse than our addiction to alcohol, cigarettes, even sugar etc because we are being told that exercise is good for us regardless of how are bodies are feeling. Working out in order to look good and pushing ourselves to the extremes of exhaustion to make us feel better is indeed insidious because we are not being asked to address our behaviours and this has an impact on everyone including our relationships.

Completely surrendering to feel our bodies is an important practice. To actually choose to connect and listen to my body feels amazing – even when my body may not feel this way – I appreciate the honesty of my body and the lessons it provides. It opens up life to a very different way of living.

I agree Simone, surrendering to our bodies, is one of the most loving things we can do in any given moment and something I am developing. To say to my husband when I am feeling tired and I to go for a rest. I now find this such an honest and loving thing to do rather than ignore and keep going, pretending that I’m ok which is how I used to be.

Thank you for sharing this Anonymous. You could easily have been describing my own relationship with exercise for many years. For me this started even before having children. I too wasn’t ever a big drinker, but I would hammer (literally that’s what it felt like I was doing) my body with running, ‘power’ walking or swimming (until I was exhausted), I even took up boxing classes for a short period. Yes, myself, a beautiful delicate woman boxing! It was all to avoid what I was feeling was missing in my life – true intimacy and connection that of course had to begin with me. Now I have a different understanding of ‘power’ walking – simply walking in connection with myself. Exercise for me now is about fun and connection and supporting my body – nothing else.

It’s interesting for me as I always lived the opposite in that I always felt delicate and never liked hard exercise or pushing myself; but the interesting part is that I took things to the opposite extreme and didn’t exercise my body enough to support it. This was my way of saying that when I looked around and saw most people (especially women) acting tough and driving their bodies to exhaustion, I didn’t want any part of that. From learning and understanding my own experience with exercise and drive and what I have used in life to abuse myself, I have also come to a true intimacy and connection with myself and from this continue to develop my way of exercising in celebration and rejoice of me.

Whether we push ourselves to exercise hard or don’t do any exercise at all we are abusing our bodies as we are reacting in one way or another. I pushed my body with an attitude ‘no pain, no gain’ by practicing yoga every day… I can relate to feeling tension in my body if I was disrupted in any way while I was practicing it. I realised I was becoming addicted and my body felt hard so I stopped completely for a while. Today I walk and do gentle exercises and stretches most days with a focus on my body and how it is feeling; it is very different to how I have exercised in the past.

It is just amazing how we can engage and indulge in activities or substances believing that they are doing some good when in fact they are actually doing the exact opposite by burying the issues further, and even in our realization we sometimes want to defend that choice with all kinds of justification and not willing to make true change.

This is so true Fumiyo. We can be so lost that we will go to the extremes to defend and justify that exercise is confidence building and that any amount of exercise is good for us because it makes us feel better by giving us the fix we so desperately need to fill the emptiness, all because we simply don’t want to feel what our body is presenting to us in that moment.

I have worked in gyms as a Physiotherapist and treated clients who were clearly addicted to exercise. They would do 2-3 high intensity exercise classes a day 7 days per week. When they got injured and could not exercise for 2 weeks, they would become extremely irritable, moody and anxious – classic withdrawal symptoms. That was when I realised that exercise can be no different from a drug if it is mis-used.

Great point you raise Andrew, when I was addicted to running and was unable to run due to an injury instead of resting my body and allowing it to heal, I would go to the local pool and run in the shallow end or do many laps. I was unable to rest my body for even a day as I needed to get my fix.

Thank you Anonymous for sharing your story, and how something we think is so good for us can become an addiction. I can relate to the exhaustion feeling, the more I feel my body the more I am aware of how I over do it, when doing physical work, listening to and choosing to stop and rest when the body has had enough is what I am paying more attention to.

I never did extreme fitness but in other forms I was calling in energies which was so not loving for my body.
Now I learn to do Connective Tissue exercises which make me aware of all the lived ill energies but also a way to get them out of my body, It is so lovely to feel, with doing very very gentle exercises yourself to feel you touch yourself on deep levels. It is in a way a very deep massage to yourself.

Exercise can be a trap as we can easily kid ourselves that we are taking care of our bodies by doing so. But so much exercise does not actually care for our bodies, it pushes them and it hurts them. Around 3 and half years ago I cut all exercise down to gentle walks and around 15 months ago introduced gentle exercise with weights. I do it now as my body calls for it and I work with my body. Staying with my body during exercise is a beautiful thing and something I am forever fine tuning.

‘I now have the understanding that I am much more than what I believed myself to be.’ Absolutely! This is gorgeous. As I am discovering, anything less than this is just a creation of our mind to hold us back from being all that we truly are.

Yes Michelle, I absolutely agree, we are indeed grand, much grander than we can possibly imagine and anything less than this we have indeed created to purposely not be and live in the grandness of who we truly are.

You deliver a powerful message anonymous, about how exercise can be similar to that of a drug that distracts us from feeling and responding to our bodies.
Its easy to override the body’s call to stop, when so many forms of exercise these days encourages us to go harder and push ourselves to exhaustion.

As we seek solutions for whatever dilemma we tend to go into, the obvious opposite end of the problem like lack of exercise which can lead to overweight or heart disease arises, hence all exercise must be good, hence the superficial and simplified catchy slogans of what is supposed to be good for us that offer us the ‘to-do-thing’ to overcome our problem. Thereby the underlying cause of any problem is not even considered but buried by the easy fix, no different to taking drugs. And we all know exactly how to “drug” ourselves – exercise, work, food, stress, emotional drama, complications, problems, illness etc. Responsibility would start with exploring the underlying root cause that brings forth a behaviour or situation.

We are fortunate to have a body that can heal itself, remarkable really. We however do a good job of wearing it out with the amount and intensity of exercise and sport. Bones break, joints swell, muscles melt, ligaments and tendons stretch and snap. It just shows how we don’t recognise that we are pushing our body much further than it can handle with no awareness of this. Yes, we can get a day procedure and an operation to ‘fix’ it, but it never is really fixed, function has been restored, but it will always be a more vulnerable part of the body.

It is amazing that we can go into the same kind of withdrawal reaction over things that we usually would consider to be “good” for us (getting angry, needing something desperately, etc.) that we usually associate with drugs or alcohol addiction. To me this demonstrates the fact that we can use anything as a way to cover up what we are actually feeling. It can be exercise, it can be drugs, it can be model airplane-making. Take it away and all those suppressed feelings start to come to the surface, and the first line of defence is anger, a clear “back off” message to everyone.

We are constantly being sold another set of ideals and beliefs, it’s no wonder we are lost in all the illusions we have been fed whether it be exercise, life style choice, country, hair style we have choices galore to peruse. . If we take food and the options we are offered in milk as an example, the norm was cows milk, then we got skinny, full cream, fat free, organic and lactose free and then came along all the vegetable milks from almonds, coconuts, oats, rice, soy and hazelnuts, each being sold with described healthy benifits. With these options it’s difficult to see through the bombardment of information we are led to believe we have to choose from, but in truth this is all just another layer of illusion. True choice comes from listening to our bodies inner wisdom, a communication that encompasses our entire being to support a body of Love, that supports us without ” giving our power away to the draining effects of anyone or anything” as you say, anonymous, and it certainly doesn’t come in a box, glossy magazine, travel brochure, latest fitness craze etc etc……..

Connective Tissue exercises are an extremely simple yet powerful form of exercise that also offers us an opportunity to deeply connect and feel what is going on in our body whilst releasing the body via the connective tissue. It is awesome Anon. that you have used these as a form of your healing program and they are a great way to make change in the way we exercise by slowing down, feeling and honoring our body.

In former times exercising was for me for the function of my body. It was hard and focussed on a result. This was never truly fun. Now I explore more and more the movements of a child, the natural way of moving. Moving and exercising my body in this loving quality is fun.

When you stop to feel the impact of adrenal exhaustion, you can really come to understand the damage you have caused to your body by constantly pushing and draging yourself. I had suffered exhaustion for a long time and it took me well over a year to bring my body back into balance. Now the slightest push or drive, my body lets me know straight away and I have to allow my body extra rest.

It is interesting and ironic how exercise is considered to the ‘good for you’ yet doing it to the extreme is actually very damaging and detrimental to the body. Often this extreme sport is marvelled at, which tends to encourage one to continue. Like any machine that is on constant go, the body too finds a way to say ‘stop’ and this does come in the form of some type of illness that forces everything to come to a halt.

I agree Johanne, at the irony of how exercise is considered good for you and yet in the extreme form it is very harming to the body. For me it looks like and feels like an assault on the body and in the drive to succeed it is like a way of punishing ourselves.

We can bring drive or overdrive into anything that we choose and it has us wondering what it is that we don’t want to stop and feel. What is going on in our day, month, life or in the moment that we would want to run away from? It’s interesting to ponder on as we are all such highly intelligent and wise when we stop and connect to our bodies and what it is that we feel in solidity; and yet our bodies are the very thing that we discard, abuse and disregard in nothing more than an attempt to not feel and therefore not take responsibility for our choices – what has been, or what is coming next.

Body dysmorphia is rife amongst personal trainers and PE teachers – what are we really getting when we go into a gym or a sports class. Are we really being taught to connect to our bodies and nurture them and care for them so they can deliver what is needed. Or is it about looks and ability at any cost?

Who would have thought that using exercise in its championed form could actually be so devastating, we’re told the more you exercise the better of you are, I wonder if that’s actually coming from the fitness industry competing for our $$ or somewhere else

This is such an honest sharing. How likely is it to hear that someone was addicted to exercise; that they used exercise as a drug to run away from themselves – when exercise is meant to be good for you? This makes me really appreciate the depth of healing universal medicine brings – making sense between adrenal exhaustion, the choice of life style and our emotions/hurts.

Yes Fumiyo, it is great to get to the truth of why we choose these addictive behaviours and call them out especially with things like exercise, as it is seen as totally normal to push yourself hard for the gain, and not as a tool to numb, distract or check out from our bodies and what we are not wanting to feel.

Exactly Fumiyo, and this self abusive behaviour leads to adrenal exhaustion. It leaves people with a big question mark as they can’t see any link between it. I am very graceful to have found Universal Medicine and to know the bigger meaning of illness and diseases – we are creating our life with our choice for the energy that feeds us and by living our quality.

That there is such a thing as addiction to exercise and that it is something that can harm our bodies, have a detrimental effect on our relationships and allow us bury all our issues is a topic that should be discussed far and wide.

Yes, it does need to be discussed, addiction to exercise is parallel to binge eating, or bulimia or being a workaholic, or addicted to coffee, drugs or sugar. They are all ways to bury or distract from an issue and keep disconnected from being ourselves.

Big time and so many ways to distract for sure. I find the addiction to exercises worse as it is not obvious to be harmful to the body, as many people think that extreme sport is healthy, but when it is done to run away from discomfort to distract it can’t be healthy – all the reason for the anger and stress is not looked at and ignored and dumped into the body.

Interesting point you mention here Jane. Addictions of which there are plenty I feel too are very harmful on our relationships and bodies. Numbing ways, avoidance tactics to bury issues – of which we choose. What starts out as a simple reason to relax then becomes an addiction as the disengagement to ‘feel’ starts to cover up (numb out) the under lying reason/s why addictions then become an everyday distraction. A very crafty cover up.

We can get addicted to anything, as long as it is able to fill the void, for a short while, we feel inside. The only thing that can heal this is getting back to ourself and know that we can fill this void with love, that won’t seep out again.

You express something what I have already known before, but I was not able to express it in a way you did. It is unbelievable, what we can do, to not feel our hurt and bad feelings – by abusing sport, other people, food and so on. We have no other choice to feel, what is really going on in our body, without overriding it or pretending everything is OK. Thanks for your inspirational sharing.

When I played sport I would look at people who had far less ability than me and wonder why they seemed so much more at ease with themselves than I did. How I wondered could people who were not good at sport be so confident and self assured even within the environment of playing sport. Of course I realise now that sport does not build confidence and using it to try and create self worth is the most false of pretences, a trick we play on ourselves and others. Only taking the time to deeply accept ourselves as we are can allow us to walk around with self assurance, for there is nothing we do that alters the fact we are amazing beings before we are human doings of any kind.

This is just beautiful. It brings home to me how popular pushing ourselves to the limit is, not just when it comes to exercise either! Whenever I talk to people about exercise, they always say “no pain, no gain”. However, like you, through the teachings of Universal Medicine, I have learnt to connect with and listen to my body, not just when exercising but on a daily basis and moment to moment, if I can. It has been just over a year since I went to my first Universal Medicine presentation and already I can sustain conscious presence for a full day. Not every day, but that is my focus, because when I do manage to sustain it, there is no feeling like it in this world and amazingly awesome are words that for me, closely describe it!

Yeah – so correct – pushing yourself to the limits is immensely popular. I definitely remember buying into that a few times by bungee jumping and the jumping out a plane – I remember being absolutely terrified then triumphant I had been able to do this, but my body told me I was an absolute fool and I got very sick. Looking back on these crazy days when I thought it was fun to push myself both mentally and physically to the limits it was deeply unpleasant and nothing compares to the feeling I have now of knowing in myself I am already enough.

Awesome Anonymous! What a great learning. A few things to take note of here:
“to completely surrender whenever I feel tired and to avoid any form of artificial stimulation through sugar, caffeine or stress”.
“The moment I feel any fatigue is an indication for me to stop”.
” … if I rested as soon as I felt the feeling of tiredness come on, the feeling of depression and negative thoughts would dissipate”.
What I love about the esoteric as you say Anonymous is the specific tailoring it provides to support your connection to your body. It’s an instant mechanism to responsibility and because it is delivered with love the truth that it offers gives you substance.
And then as Anonymous states ”
I began to understand the importance of being aware of how I was feeling and the draining effect of giving my power away to anything or anyone”. Bravo to the Esoteric!!

Thank you so much Anonymous for this great blog. I was not diagnosed with adrenal exhaustion but I made the experiences with respiratory infections but circa every 8 weeks – and I was also addicted to sport. My body was not able to heal it self any more because I was so exhausted and same as you I did not notice it – no that was not true if I am honest I noticed it but I ignored it. I too did all the sport to not feel what is really going on and since I met Serge Benhayon I started to get a deeper understanding for my body and what I was burying. I am sure if I had not met Serge I would end up very ill and therefore I am very thankful that he is a man not holding back all what his wisdom and share it with the whole world and I am thankful to myself that I at least was able to face my deepest hurts.

Great blog Anonymous. It reminds me of the days when I used to go to the gym five times a week after work and walk everywhere I could just to keep me slim and to fit into the ‘ideal’ body image I set for myself. This was exhausting of course, and although I felt fit and healthy at the time, it was taking me further away from my body’s natural rhythm and my feelings of emptiness and self-loathing. I used to go on extreme diets too, and had a vegetarian low fat diet. None of which was honouring what my body really wanted as looking back I was just punishing my body to keep it in line with my ideal image of what I thought I should look like. Universal Medicine has introduced to me a new way of living, eating and exercising that feels much more honouring for my body and I am starting to feel what is really going on in my body and allowing myself to feel. Thank you for your blog Anonymous, and congratulations on allowing yourself to come back to you and healing your addiction to exercise.

Thank you Anonymous for sharing. I hadn’t realised until I read this blog, the impact addiction to exercise has on our relationships. It made me stop to reflect on how I felt if I missed my daily yoga routine because I was too tired because I had been up in the night to our baby and how I would take my frustration out on my husband; it is quite shocking the lengths we will go to to get our fix. Thank goodness for Universal Medicine who has supported me to let go of this abusive behaviour.

Awesome you were able to see through the illusion, and start to heal the disregarding choices you had made. I would love to put your blog up in running clubs and gyms all around the world as I can see many are lost in the need to push themselves to the extreme, yet in truth this kind of workout never works because we are only compounding everything we don’t want to be into our bodies by not dealing with the hurt that drove us to be so disregarding in the first place.

I am all for exercise but exercise at the expense of the mind and body is never worth it.

Like everything else these days, exercise has become extreme and people are taking it to higher levels to the point of using steroids and all sorts of muscle building nonsense. It really does not matter what form of checking out or numbing we use it is all the same, I used to use drugs and alcohol for the same purpose, maybe not considered as healthy as extreme exercise but both are doing us no good at all.

At a point in my life where I can feel the hold exercise has had on me – this is a hugely important blog to read.
I was convinced exercise allowed be to clear my head and be happier – but the reality is I was using exercise as an escape to not feel something – just as someone can use food for the same function.
Its pretty crazy to think how we can manipulate what society considers healthy and yet abuse it just as much as anything considered bad.
It comes back to our responsibility of how we live and what the purpose is behind what we do. My relationship with exercise is vastly changing, and I am so blessed to be able to finally be honest about why is has such a key role in my life.

Hello Hannah and I agree, exercise was literally exhausting me in the way I was using it. At the start it seemed like a great fix but after a while it became like a drug and I needed more and more of it. Whether it was something new or something old I had to keep changing it as after a bit the exercise I was doing would stop covering the problems I had. I had no other answers at that time and I had just resigned myself to thinking this is how life is. I felt trapped and alone a lot of the time as it looked like no one understood or that I didn’t have anyone to speak to. Meeting up with Serge Benhayon changed my life, I could see how different it was to the ‘norm’ in the way he treated people, everyone, all of the time. He had this care that seemed to live in his every word and every movement. At one point I couldn’t believe what I was seeing but the more I saw the more I knew this was no act or show. It is remarkable to see how Serge Benhayon is with people and what is more remarkable is how other people who are living this way are now supporting in the same way. People who are genuinely loving and deeply caring for themselves and then everyone around them, hugely different to the world ‘norm’.

I was pushing my body so hard that I was experiencing respiratory infections every six weeks and then was eventually diagnosed with third stage adrenal exhaustion and depression. Wow this is very intense. I am working in a gym and can observe this behaviour in many people. A lot of men are doing their workout after work, to push their bodies so hard to be able to sleep because of the exhaustion. And to top this I know from many that they buy some junk food on their way home. What a huge self-abuse is this.

I often find it quite amazing the fact that we can take something that can be supportive for our body, push it to excess and instead turn that thing into something that harms us. As you say, “I used exercise to fill the void. It provided a high that encouraged me to go back to the gym to get my next fix”. The topic of exercise, something that many would hold as healthy, is therefore being used in a way that is very unhealthy. I’ve got countless situations like this in my life, from work, relationships, conversations, study etc..

This is a super cool honest blog, and I think your story of being addicted to exercise will resonate with many people. I had a similar experience when I was 12 and at school, my whole day revolved around going to the track at lunch time where I could just run. Exercise is just one of many many ways we can seek relief from the tension we feel. But ultimately the relief is never enough and we’re always left seeking more, or rather still looking for what we truly want, a connection to who we really are.

We can use all sorts of things to distract us from feeling our emptiness, kidding ourselves that we are in fact being healthy and doing something good for ourselves. This is where honesty is paramount so that we can truly discern how we are doing activities such as exercise. Are we participating in these activities to numb and check out and not feel what is there in our body that we haven’t addressed or are we doing them in a connected way which brings healing.

We applause people who seem extremely fit and do a lot of sports, but we never ask ourselves the question: but is that person really doing that well? In Holland they have just nominated this young Dutch olympic sport girl who is a professional runner as ‘Person of the year’. Why? Why is she person of the year? Because she won two golden medals? So what? It does not make any sense.

Exercise or keeping fit are difficult to challenge as they are glorified and celebrated. How often do we look at a toned body and get caught in endless rounds of compliments and celebration. What you have so honestly uncovered Anonymous, is the fact that this activity can be insidious and harming if used in denial of what is truly happening for us and the communication the body is sharing with us. There is always an opportunity to choose our response to what is around us with love, an opportunity to, instead of going into avoidance and denial, to stop ponder and claim the truth.

Wow, you have realised that you have used exercises to escape from your hurts, what a revelation this is, in a world where so many people can only sleep when they have exhausted themselves with a hard workout at the gym or running or spinning. There is something so wrong in using exercising to skip away from life. The sport industry likes this movement and it is cool to be a sport junkie – but in truth it is not really better than a drug junkie – both are using something to numb down the feelings of hurt, rejection, anger with the boss or living in a relationship that hurts emotional.

This is great that you used exercises to escape from your hurts, what a revelation this is, in a world where so many people can only sleep when they have exhausted themselves with a hard workout at the gym or running or spinning. There is something so wrong in using exercising to skip away from life. The sport industry likes this movement and it is cool to be a sport junkie – but in truth it is not really better than a drug junkie – both are using something to numb down the feelings of hurt, rejection, anger with the boss or living in a relationship that hurts emotional.

I can also relate to exercise addiction and using it to run away from myself, not wanting to feel the emptiness in my body. In building a connection to our body to feel how we are and by truly nurturing and honouring ourselves we experience amazing changes to our health and well-being as you have shared Anonymous.

Hello Linda and yes as I have already mentioned, literally trying to run away from what was going on. I thought it was the answer but like so many things after while it no longer was ‘it’. Universal Medicine supported me to understand what was going on ‘behind the scenes’ of me and life. Once I became aware again there was really no choice to how I would take care of myself. For years I had been on this merry go round of life trying to fix myself and yet no one had given me the tools to take care of life for myself. Universal Medicine has those tools and they are available to anyone, if your life is on a merry go round then take the time to see what’s really going on and pretty soon you will be able to step off for yourself.

It’s a common cycle to get caught into, repeating behaviours that though they aren’t working are able to continue as we are still able to function. It’s only when we reach the point of exhaustion that we are then forced to look at all the choices that lead us up to that point, and slowly retrace and reimprint them to heal the exhaustion. Exhaustion and pushing in these momentums are very common in our current society – we settle for levels of functionality and our work culture fosters this also. Many people are saying ‘stop’, and their bodies are saying it also. It is certainly time we had a good look at the way things are being run – as it is clearly not working well for many.

What a relevant topic to share on, the saying ‘too much of a good thing….’ is rarely applied to exercise. Exercising harder is encouraged and we don’t notice we are depleted when we are propped up with caffeine, sugars and refined carbohydrates.

Thank you Anonymous for this exposing blog. Is it not so that today people who are excising hard are getting attention because they seem to be very healthy? You gave a good reply for me with this sentences: “With this addiction I would use exercise to numb and avoid the feelings of emptiness I had, to control emotions that would arise, and use it as a way of expunging any pent-up feelings.“

It’s quite possible to have a focus or a hobby in life, or an interest to which we devote much of our time and energy, but be disregarding of other things in our life and this causes us and others to miss out on so much.

I can relate to what you have written here
“With this addiction I would use exercise to numb and avoid the feelings of emptiness I had, to control emotions that would arise, and use it as a way of expunging any pent-up feelings.”
I went to the gym recently and watched someone on the treadmill running flat out and it was easy to see she was using the machine to get rid of the angry pent up feelings as I could feel the anger flowing from her. Unfortunately she hasn’t got rid of the anger because she hasn’t dealt with why she gets angry in the first place. So when the anger starts to build up again off she goes to the gym it seems to me to be a vicious circle.

In a world that promotes exercise as healthy, regardless of the intention, your blog is revelatory. “I realised that I was using exercise as a drug to run away from myself.” There must be many people who use exercise this way but very few are open to sharing what their experiences are like. Perhaps because we have yet to see that excessive exercise is not so healthy after all?

Thank you Anonymous, a very candid expose on the affects of exercise can have on us, especially when looking at this from the outside and in society, how much people see flogging themselves at the gym as ‘normal’, that in fact if you aren’t going to the gym, that there is something wrong with you. I know that I bought into that ideal and belief for a long time, that if I wasn’t pumping iron, I wasn’t being healthy. I feel differently now. Opting for more gentle exercise and not needing to go hard and be hard on myself in the process.

You touched on somethings here that is very important…the connection between adrenal exhaustion and depression. I see it time and time again and recognise it in myself, depression comes after a long time of trying to suppress what we have been feeling and focusing on finding solutions. The solutions we use are exhausting and the avoidance of the issues is exhausting hence the adrenal exhaustion, the depression comes from the fact that the solutions we have been working with are not working. It is incredibly depressing to know you are working so hard with no results. The healing comes from readjusting the perspective on the issues, not finding solutions but acknowledging the emptiness and addressing that. Self care, self love, tenderness and creating space for all of those things has been vital in the turnaround.

Thank you for sharing Anonymous, you highlighted an area that I had forgotten about, but in the past I had also used it myself, using exercise as a means of escape, a way to not feel what is really going on because of the distraction, which I then used under the illusion that I was in fact doing a great job of keeping fit and being healthy, when in truth all I was doing was running away from what I really felt.

I can relate to misusing exercise to check out and avoid feeling the emptiness and seek a high in the belief that I was bettering myself and lifting my mood and how I was feeling about myself. My approach at that time was always to push my body to feel I had achieved something and override how my body was truly feeling. Learning to exercise gently and connect to the way I am moving has been a revelation and a joy to be with my body and listen to how it guides me to move.

Exercise addiction seems to be becoming more and more popular amongst young people. The dangerous thing about having this issue is that there is very little awareness on the topic. When I mention it in passing to friends I know that seem to present with the addiction, they usually laugh it off, this belief that because exercise is ‘good’ for us that means it doesn’t matter how driven, hard or shutdown we get when we do it, in what quality, quantity, it’s all fine because it’s healthy?. For me the telling signs of addiction is when you lash out when something is unavailable.

Universal Medicine has truly helped me understand how although exercise is very important, the key is the quality of the exercise which means not only the exercise that I am doing but taking the quality of me to that exercise and not pushing myself in anyway.

A really powerful blog that exposes how exercising – something so seemingly healthy for the body – can be redirected into a means of avoiding feeling deep emptiness, that same emptiness which can also be behind another’s motivation to drink alcohol or do drugs, develop a dysfunctional relationship with food and a whole host of other ways we numb and distract ourselves from the truth of how we’re really feeling.

“…if I rested as soon as I felt the feeling of tiredness come on, the feeling of depression and negative thoughts would dissipate.”
This statement alone anonymous, is hugely significant. We don’t as a whole seem to equate depression with the way in which we treat our bodies – especially the level of ‘push’ beyond the energy we realistically have. What if taking responsibility and deep care for ourselves and our physical body, as you’ve described, is an essential key to dealing with depression – and not seeing it as a mental/emotional condition alone, but one that is largely influenced by our physical state of being?

Thank-you anonymous, for a powerful and honest expose here on how we can use exercise, or so many behaviours for that matter, in the attempt to numb ourselves from inner angst and pain that we may feel in life. And how you’ve showed also, that there actually is another way, even if the inner resources are only discovered after quite some break down in the body… In this itself we are offered so much learning about ourselves, and the truly delicate nature of our being.

Reading this honest and thoughtful blog, I am left not only questioning our use of exercise, but also the way in which we can push our bodies through life – to ‘get things done’, reach some ‘goal’ or outcome, and/or keep ourselves super-busy so that we don’t have to stop, and feel what may be going on for us at deeper levels in our life.
Your words here anonymous are a wake up call to the delicateness and deep honouring that our body and being deserve – and how readily our societal norms still trample this fineness of our essential nature underfoot… There is much to ponder here.

“This was in the eighties when aerobics had just started and the classes were more organic and less frenetic than they are now.” Yes even though I was not alive yet in the eighties I can sense that the exercise classes now are really extreme and pushing women’s bodies to great lengths to reach fitness, look slim, be strong etc which to me at times feel a little unnatural to the female body. Gentle exercise feels way more honouring and does support the body as it is instead of trying to change, better and optimise it. As you say it is about how we feel in ourselves that we need to look at before we go out to do something about it.

Lieke this is something that I’ve been observing when I go to gym now… it has definitely changed a lot from the 80’s and 90’s, there is more of a determination, hardness and ‘I can do anything’ with my body attitude like never before. Which we know supply is from the demand that is out there for such a way. When we honestly listen to our bodies and take note the supply changes.

Thank you Anonymous for sharing this great blog you offer many insights on your journey of healing your exercise addiction. I can relate very well as I also remember a time in my life when I was addicted to exercise and it controlled my whole life, I would always have my running clothes in the car and would stop anywhere and get out and start running, it was a way to bury everything and never deal with any issues. Learning to love myself and deepen the relationship with myself has been key to letting go of this addiction and to start to truly nurture and honour my body with a more gentle exercise program.

Thank you for sharing- it is great to know what is possible. I am experiencing adrenal exhaustion so it is very supportive to feel how another has found their way with healing this and looking after themselves and the difference this can make.

When i came to Universal Medicine i was also exhausted, but had not realised that is what was going on in my body, as well as depressed. I too got a lot of support from Esoteric Practitioners, to look at my life and how I was living and what choices I was making. I first had to work on my sleep and ensure got enough and ensuring the equality was there to re build my body.

It feels like a very loving discipline to exercise in such a way where we stop when we feel fatigue, fatigue and exercise are never a good combination and we can become very good at discerning when we have done enough and / or need to rest. What I am learning more and more is that it isn’t about the quantity of exercise i can fit in but the quality I am in doing the exercise and often the quality I gain by committing to doing them.

This blog just goes to show that we can have ‘good’ drugs – in that it’s an activity that most would not class as harmful and yet when used in a way to not feel is no different to the known/commonly accepted drug forms. So really, anything that keeps us from our feelings is in affect a drug. Which makes me wonder, what other ‘good’ drugs are in our lives? and can we tell when someone is in a ‘high’ from these unquestioned behaviours to seek numbness?